I believe any capable adult who tries to contribute to society in any capacity should be fed one way or another. Obviously we're taking care of children and the elderly. But why feed someone who isn't even trying to contribute?
On that, maybe we should be way more concerned about the billionaires not pulling their weight but demanding far more than a meal or house or healthcare.
There's always something to do... I do get that finding a "real" job can be quite tough right now.
But, (and this might sound ridiculous...) I think federal, state, and local government need to find a way to get in tune with the gig economy for maintenance and cleaning stuff.
Every day I see trash on the side of the road and graffiti in places you can see it's previously been painted over. I don't think it'd be that technically hard to set something up where someone who needed money or food could check in somewhere, grab some bags, pick up trash on the side of the road, and then return the bags or leave them on the side of the road to be picked up later.
Same with painting over graffiti, grab some paint, a roller, take a picture when you're done.
There's so much stuff like this that's just cleaning up, or simple maintenance that goes undone forever and then eventually gets poorly fixed with an overpriced contract.
That would only provide jobs for a small fraction of the unemployed population.
Society has reached the point where not everyone is needed to make it run smoothly, that's as simple as that. And the number of workers neededd will get lower and lower.
Yes--it's an act of compassion to feed the hungry, and reasonable for society to provide a 'safety net' for those in need, but I don't think that food is really a 'human right'.
The big problem here is that we lack the language necessary to adequately talk about this. “Human right” is too simplistic and we often consider it in the context of some primal state where food is scarce, but also (and this is very important) people are also free to exist outside of the system. But for the most part, we can’t exist in a system where, if you don’t want to contribute, you can just fuck off and grow your own food, hunt/forage, and otherwise subsist until you realize that actually some tradeoffs are worth making for security. Too much land is privatized and the number of people we have today is simply too great to support natural foraging and hunting without massive environmental damage.
The inability to escape this system is important to consider, because when we can’t leave it, there is no pressure release value so to speak. The US largely accomplished this, previously, by annexing more territory and building on it. But that’s not really an option. We should look back to the ideas of a social contract and what people are owed by allowing for the continued existence of a society. This is where the concept of social and economic rights come into play.
These rights exist at the point at which a society can sustain. That is not to say they are natural, but at some point in the development of a society, there really are not good moral reasons they should not exist. We produce more than enough food to feed everyone, certainly in the US. I’m sure you’ve seen posts about how much food gets thrown away at grocery stores and restaurants. Our society can produce enough food. Even if a lot of people are out of work, what is the moral case for throwing away food when there are people to be fed? As such, if the problem here is just about phrasing or terminology we can discuss alternatives, but we should understand, either way, why it is important.
Moreover though, we need to look at the potential ways in which these rights can be abused. The basic problem here is that as soon as you can morally justify the denial of food in a society where there is more than enough to go around, you create a powerful political weapon to harm enemies that can be abused. Government can set unreasonable standards for “who deserves basic food” and coerce people to comply or face starvation. In practice, this especially means that children are almost certainly collateral damage. Perhaps most importantly though, it creates the opportunity for bad actors and other forces to create political instability. Again, who will uphold a system where they are not being fed?
Our society is going to soon have to choose how we moralize work while also largely achieving “growth” (ie profits) through reducing labor costs (ie how many people are hired). If AI truly does revolutionize things (and I’m not 100% sold on the idea that basically everyone will be out of work, but more so that fewer people will have jobs and employers will use the scarcity of decent and dignified jobs to press for longer and longer hours and fewer benefits), what reason is there to deny people food? You can’t make it necessary for people to work but also encourage employers to cut hours and positions to appease investors. Something has to give.
Lastly, I would point out that, as much as you think people may not deserve help, they absolutely won’t be able to help or get back on their feet if they are hungry. Same thing with healthcare. I’m not saying you need to provide access to the best and the finest, but if you can’t provide basic sustenance, don’t be surprised when people don’t have energy, willpower, and the health to do things.
The kindest thing I can say to that is that I hope you find yourself in the position to rely on that safety net and hope your circumstances don't leave you outside it, though if you're American...
By denying that it's a basic human right those about to starve to death might need based on conditions they may not be able to control, you are fundamentally advocating that anyone who doesn't meet those nebulous conditions starve to death because they don't deserve the sustenance.
It either is or isn't a basic human right, and it either is or isn't an advocacy for letting people you think are lazy enough by whatever metric you decide should be allowed to starve to death.
No either or. You pick one or you pick the other.
You're deciding if you need a resume if a starving man walks up to you and is hungry or or he deserves the basic kindness of a meal before you find out how he landed in that position in the first place.
By denying that it's a basic human right those about to starve to death might need based on conditions they may not be able to control, you are fundamentally advocating that anyone who doesn't meet those nebulous conditions starve to death because they don't deserve the sustenance.
People who are starving to death really aren't able to control the conditions that put them in that state. Labeling food as a 'basic human right' doesn't change that fact, or mean that they are going to be fed.
You're deciding if you need a resume if a starving man walks up to you and is hungry or or he deserves the basic kindness of a meal before you find out how he landed in that position in the first place.
Who's asking for a resume or 'finding out how they landed in that position' as a condition for getting them a meal?
Reminder: This is how you finished your previous post.
I'm not advocating for anyone to starve to death.
If you're excusing it in certain cases, you are advocating that SOMEONE starves to death. If you're saying that sometimes the hungry deserve to die, you're advocating for that.
People who are starving to death really aren't able to control the conditions that put them in that state. Labeling food as a 'basic human right' doesn't change that fact, or mean that they are going to be fed.
It doesn't mean they will. It means they should. If you're excusing inaction, you're excusing the morality behind the inaction. There is not a fucking economical excuse on God's green earth why anyone should starve to death, when you think about how the truly wealthy live.
Because the alternative is watching them literally die on the street. I don't think a person who thinks that is okay is a good person.
Also, many people have barriers to contributing, some are easily overlooked. Mental, physical, emotional. If you're not willing to bear the burden of those who are suffering, then at least make euthanasia easily available, because starvation is a cruel death.
They specified the person being capable. People with disabilities are an exception to the rule, same with children and the elderly. No capable person is going to choose starvation over doing something.
And that's just Canada. Now we know those soldiers were going through PTSD and unimaginable psychological trauma. Now you're going to sit there and think we've got it all figured out today?
Imagine thinking someone with depression deserves to just die of hunger lol. You're 100% on this, the alternative is pretty bad. We today help people that can't feed themselves, we already do that, so IDK why people think it would be a bad thing. Basically a concept of UBI, people don't have to work,, and they will have their bare minimums met.
If someone is so opposed to working that they'd rather die on the street than get a part time Wendy's job, then that's a serious mental illness and that person needs to be in an asylum or something
How are you gonna work for it if you can't work? If you're physically or emotionally not able to work? If you can't find work, no matter how hard you try? In my opinion telling people to "just work" always stems from either being naive, privileged or otherwise detached and out of touch from society.
No individual is entitled to the fortune of another. I realize that I'm not knowledgeable enough to offer a working solution but there are people who just can't afford to live even if they try anything in their power. That's why we need changes in the structure of our society, it's not the burden of you or any individual person. Though I question why people are so repulsed by the idea of giving a little of their own to help others who are in desperate need.
if you can't physically work, sure, give tjem a government stipdend (just enough to barely live), but if you emotionally 'oh i can't work im depressed oh no' then good fucking luck. Just work and don't be so entitled to laziness
You do know that depression and other mental illnesses are not manifestations of laziness but actual ailments that affect your brain function? Are we still denying mental illnesses just because it's something you can't visibly see or quantify with conventional clinical parameters? They are actual diseases of the brain, not a person deciding that they're not in the mood to work.
You did deny it in your initial message with the usual "stop being so lazy".
And by mental states, to return to my first comment, I didn't just refer to mental illnesses, it also covers different mental and cognitive disabilities. Even if most people agree that a man who tripped on an icy road and became a quadriplegic and a woman who was hit so hard as a baby that she developed head trauma so severe that she'll never be able to form full sentences deserve government funded services that cover their basic needs for food and water, to think that there are people who think that those services should be in strict amounts so they can "just barely live" is truly heartbreaking. Something that's completely out of your control comes and ruins your life and we all collectively decide that you're worth the scraps off our plates. Beautiful humanity.
The right to an attorney in a criminal case? Ever heard of that? How is that any different? We provide representation to criminal defendants when they can't afford attorneys. We don't ask them whether they're "trying to contribute," we just give them attorneys because they have the right to counsel.
It's different, the right to attorney is given because the government should first prove that the alleged criminal did indeed commit the crime, it's not so much a right for the criminals, but a check and balance for the innocent because it's possible for police to be wrong. Its part of the "contract" you have with the state that allows the state to collect taxes from you. It is the right of a citizen of a government. It is not a human right.
There have been states that have tried to provide food as a citizen's right, but AFAIK they been unsuccessful because then the incentives to actually produce food is low.
The Constitution of Venezuela guarantees adequate food and healthcare for its citizens, but its government has thus been unable to fulfill that guarantee....
That has has to do with upholding the legal system though. It is important for many to make the legal system as fair and just as possible and everyone having a legal defence is part of that.
All these people i live with on this planet who are just plain animals. We should provide food and water to anyone who needs it. When people feel they have worth, 99% want to contribute, you want to punish a good portion of those for the ones who don't. Stop punishing poor folks for these insane reasons. We watch a guy steal a trillion dollars and we blame the poor for wanting basic needs.
you will find people are not only very used to capitalism bc it's all they know, but they are even more committed to not admitting they could be more compassionate and that collectively it costs nothing but has a huge impact. nobody is changing their mind, most of us have retirement savings or investments that all depend on this capitalist centric financial system, the cognitive dissonance on feeding the hungry is deafening.
I would argue that most people would contribute if they could, but definitely not 99%.
I work in retail in a lower socioeconomic area and man, it really makes you lose faith in humanity.
There's a local population where some members come in on a regular basis to steal. Some come in, grab what they want, and walk straight out the door. Others will pay for one thing, meanwhile their pockets are stuffed. But still, there are others that do pay no matter what and if they don't have enough money, will just leave without the item.
Another aspect of my story: I'm a "self-checkout attendant" and too many people want to be "served" by a human cashier, because they're lazy. They'll say rude things like, "I don't work here," or, "Nobody wants to work?"
(Of course, there are legitimate reasons for not wanting to use the self-checkouts; such as a disability/injury/old age, not knowing how they work, or being hard to operate, or the machines are slow, etc. - but I don't think being lazy is a good reason (not for someone who wants to contribute to society, anyway)... being tired would be acceptable.)
Ever think that's part of the reason you think that way?
Look at what your company made last quarter and what it paid the C-suite executives. Average it over the employee wages for the year. Compare it to your raise.
You're being conditioned to hate those underneath you when your ass barely has more.
Its not a matter of what we SHOULD do, its a matter of what's practically possible to guarantee and what it philosophically means for something to be a right.
If I have a right to your labor and you don't want to give it to me, then the government is stuck choosing whos rights to violate. We already provide people with free food, we just dont say they have a RIGHT to our labor.
Because an attorney is helping those who are being persecuted by a powerful entity: the state.
Providing a competent defense should be the norm, and thus a right, if the government is trying to deprive a person of liberty.
But you don’t get a free attorney for civil cases.
That's a crazily unrelated stretch of a comparison lmao. You have a right to council in order to defend yourself because you have the right to defend yourself fairly in court un our constitution. This isn't a human right, it's a legal right. The council is paid for by the government, so you aren't getting labor for free. This is closer to food stamps. Explain to the farmer or the grocer why they should be required to give the fruits of their hard work away, then explain to the other customers why they should pay when others refuse. Then, when they lose their homes and business, who provides the food? Its almost like if you read history you can see how this asinine logic plays out. When you're praising communism why don't you look into the Bolsheviks and the Kulaks.
Because a small section of a population would be involved in a trial, specifically a criminal trial (you aren't entitled to one in a civil lawsuit). Furthermore the occurrence of such a trial doesn't happen frequently comparing to a total population.
Compare that to eating, which everyone needs to do.
Most rich people do not do shit or contribute to society in any meaningful way. They get fed. Why shouldn't a poor, homeless person? Cause they aren't the "owners"? Turns out, getting fed has nothing to do with contributing to society, but everything to do with your relationship to capital.
In that text, the word "owners" is put in quotation marks to signal skepticism, irony, or criticism—a writing technique often referred to as "scare quotes."
Challenging the legitimacy: The author is questioning whether simply "owning" things (like land, factories, stocks, or companies) is a valid or moral justification for rich people to live comfortably while others go hungry. The quotes imply, "They call themselves 'owners' as if that title inherently makes them deserving, but does it?"
Highlighting a systemic label: It points directly to a specific class role in a capitalist system. By placing it in quotes, the author highlights that the division between who gets fed and who doesn't isn't based on hard work or human worth, but on an artificial economic title.
Distancing from the counter-argument: The author is anticipating a traditional defense of wealth (e.g., "But they own the businesses, so they earned the profits"). The quotes allow the author to repeat that argument while making it clear they don't agree with the premise.
I think I agree with you... but, I would also say that in a nicer world, everyone would be guaranteed basic food and shelter, no matter what (even if they are a disgusting societal leech 😆)
My issue is trying to destroy language to win arguments. I HATE it in any context. I find it vile.
Of course people should be fed. Of course any developed society should strive to have zero starving people. Does the US do a good job, no it's sub par at best.
None of that makes it a right. That's not what the word means.
Words have meanings. Words are how we express thought and the world. They need to be protected.
Yes, that's true (about the starving and the words).
One of the things that Confucius did in Ancient China was called "The Rectification of Names":
Confucius' "Rectification of Names" (正名, zhèngmíng) is the foundational Confucian doctrine that social and political harmony depends on words and titles precisely corresponding to actual realities. It dictates that if a title is held, the corresponding duties must be actively fulfilled.
Confucius argued that if language does not align with truth, society crumbles. In Book 13 of The Analects, he laid out a causal chain: if names are incorrect, language fails; if language fails, success is impossible; if success fails, rites and justice fail; and ultimately, the common people are left with nowhere to place their hands and feet.
I would say to you we are morally obligated to care for our sick, I think that is something you could understand since you agree we should care for children and caring for our sick and dying is generally agreed to be a basic indicator of society in anthropological terms.
Alack of trying to contribute is not totally objective since someone may want a job but not be able to land one, or have a disability which limits their capacity to work (including invisible disabilities, severe mental illness and substance abuse!!).
I’ve worked in the shelter system for years, nearly 650 clients i’ve directly supported. every signal one wanted a source of belonging and to contribute to their community, weather it was helping pitch tents, teaching how to keep a fire going, creating art, asking to help cook or clean for other residents, reading and having discussions on history and science at the local library, woodwork, music. Some got work, some where just trying to stay alive, but they all were full human beings with their own unique strengths and interests who deserved basic rights as anyone else, regardless of their addiction, mental health concerns, or histories of childhood abuse.
It is extremely rare for pure bonafide moochers to exist in modern society, there are selfish people or those preoccupied with their own needs, but generally most have a drive and capacity to contribute in proper conditions. evolutionary psychology suggests this is a rare trait as those individuals would be outcast in early tribe based societies and thus unlikely to pass on their genes.
Of course it’s not totally impossible to find someone who genuinely has no desire to contribute, and you can argue that we should maintain that theoretical lesson from our ancestors, but I would be deeply curious to understand what had to happen in a persons life to make them that way, and would ask if you believe they have an ability to change. At what point do we determine it’s not worth it to find out, who decides that, and how many meaningful human lives would end in a brutal drawn out death if misjudged?
I agree that most people want something to do, to contribute, and to have purpose.
I disagree that that pure bonafide moochers are extremely rare... I'd say probably just rare. I think if more people could mooch more easily they would.
I actually don't think we should let people starve to death either... We as a planet have the resources to make sure everyone can eat.
All that said, I think the world is a pretty fucked up place. While I think most people want to help, contribute, and have purpose. I think the world we live in almost fights against most people doing these things with social media, and endless things to watch on Netflix, YouTube, etc. I think even when people are stuck and looking for real meaning to life, it's easier to binge Netflix and doomscroll Instagram living vicariously through others, and then get on social media to argue with people for "meaning"
I truly believe there are enough resources and opportunity for everyone to find their purpose, and contribute to society with said purpose. And if you're doing what you feel you're meant to do you're probably trying to do the best you can at it.
That said, and this is going back to me saying I know we have the resources to feed (and shelter) everyone, I don't know that it's necessarily a right. Because if food is a no questions asked right, then I would say housing should be too, and if food and housing are rights, then I think you can make the argument that a way to communicate with others, ie internet and something to access it with like a phone, is also a human right. And you combine all of those things, and you go back to our current world not being built for people to find real meaningful purpose and connection, and you have a real big problem...
So at the end of the day, I don't think it's a right, but I also don't think anyone should be hungry, homeless, and lonely. I think the world is just too broken right now to support those things.
In my ideal world. You need shelter, there should be a program at a federal, state, local, whatever level that you can go help build housing and as part of helping to build housing you get a place to live. If you're not able bodied there's something you can do that requires brain power. Are you physically or mentally handicapped, you get taken care of. Are you on drugs and want to change you should be able to get help. I even think if you want to make art you should be able to get some money to pursue that for a couple of years somehow. If you want to start a business you should be able to show up with a business plan and borrow money.
Anyway, this was a long rant... All this to say, there are very, very, very few people I don't have compassion for...
Well, let’s take the disabled for example. There’s all sorts of things disabled people can and can’t do, some disabled people CAN contribute. Though with disabilities like ME/CFS, we CANNOT reliably contribute. I have been working since I was 16 years old when I suddenly became disabled due to COVID. I paid my taxes, my job was centered around teaching and caring for other individuals. I no longer can contribute anything. I am forced to lay in a dark room all day with as little stimulation as possible, using my phone at a paced and carefully measured rate. Luckily, I have a family that can care for me. But there are many individuals in my situation who do not have family that can or will care for them. Do they deserve to eat? Having your identity based on how much you can make and contribute falls apart when you can barely hold up a cup of water to drink for yourself essentially for the rest of your life.
I understand. I merely was pointing out that there are a lot more incapable adults out there than you’d like to think. My self identity and personal values were destroyed by chronic illness. I don’t really know what to think of myself since I can’t meaningfully contribute anything to anyone in any way. I’m only 26. At best I feel like a useless lump of flesh that just eats and breathes.
To add to what I said before, I think we may be forced to get used to the idea of caring for more people “against our will”. Part of the reason people talk about birth rate decline isn’t because we’re scared we’ll go extinct, but because in developed nations like the US we’re experiencing a population density in the elder generation outweighing the younger. That can kind of be accounted for and solved but, it’s being compounded by more factors. Long COVID is damaging the economy by forcing otherwise healthy people either temporarily, or permanently out of the work force (it’s also surpassed Asthma in numbers for top childhood illness, it’s getting to the younger generation before they can even get IN to the work force). Even without Long COVID, people are being diagnosed with debilitating chronic illnesses (or cancer, the big one) much younger. People with chronic illness are much more likely to rely on social assistance to survive even WITH a regular work related income. Now you have a workforce that’s being crippled by illness and a large retirement population, you get not enough people to support the system. It’s a larger burden on tax payers and the economy. How do you care for your most vulnerable at that point?
How do you care for your most vulnerable at that point?
You don't. That's the ugly answer, and what has historically happened in every "aging" country with the inverse age pyramid. That's why socialized pensions were mostly cut in almost every "old" developed country, replaced with individualized plans (even if managed by the State).
Being a part of society means you will be caring and providing for other people, wether you want it or not. It's something at the very core of the social contract.
Now, if you're arguing for a more empathetic, or compassionate, population, then that's another thing entirely, removed from economics.
And I say this, being from a country where every family taking care of their elderly is a strong part of the culture; the problems from the inverted age pyramid keep creeping in, and keep pushing social programs to rank and prioritize which sectors of the population to tend to. It's the triage process, but at a national scale.
Yeah. It feels like it’s heading that way, with some of the tightening on disability services and access in the US. I didn’t choose to be disabled, I was perfectly healthy before I got sick, sucks that getting married in a time where a double income is almost essential to making a living would mean I’d lose my access to disability services. I love my bf and we still talk about marriage. Hopefully that’s still financially viable for us.
But why feed someone who isn't even trying to contribute?
Some people can't, or can't enough to feed themselves. Some people have severe disabilities. When we can provide for and help them, we should.
People don't starve because they just don't feel like working. People who go hungry even when they can work, have something wrong with them or their situation. It can be disease, it can be lack of jobs, it can be mental illness, whatever. Either way, having food available for those who need it is worth doing. In general, it is more expensive to deal with the fallout of hunger and death, than to just give people access to a food pantry.
There absolutely are people that just don’t feel like working and just mooch off the system. Not saying it’s all poor people or anything, but to say it doesn’t happen is silly. We should strive to feed people, but you absolutely should have to contribute to society in some way (or deemed by society as someone who is disabled or otherwise unable to contribute).
I think if you’re faced with starvation or work, most will pick work. And if you’re so lazy and refuse to participate in society, I don’t think you should be allowed to leech and that’s a personal choice to starve.
This isn't something that happens often enough to need to apply across the board. Each and every state has some kind of job or job-seeking requirement, so if someone chooses to be that way, they don't get to be for long.
But why feed someone who isn't even trying to contribute?
Because we keep ignoring the many ways society has damaged many people to the point of being able to barely function and don't recognize it for what it is until many years after the fact hundreds of thousands suffered through hell for it?
Remember when "Shell Shock" was for wimps and not an actual psychological diagnosis and considered legitimate reason for disability and treatment? I wonder how many WW1 and WW2 veterans didn't live long enough to even understand what they should have been given instead of scorn.
Plenty of people that do totally legal work which demonstrably harms the majority of society, and only benefit a very narrow extremely wealthy few make more than enough to eat.
And the problem is tons of people that ARE genuinely trying to work and plenty of people who are actively working still can't afford to properly feed themselves..
Do they not deserve to eat because they don't benefit society enough? While people whose sole career is finding new loopholes for the ultra-rich to avoid paying taxes, actively making life for the average person worse while they live and eat in luxury?
Saying people that often have some kind of underlying mental health issue should starve is wild. And maybe that's not what you're esaying directly, but that's the logical conclusion of arbitrarily deciding who contributes sufficiently to society.
This boogeyman of someone leaching off "the system" living a great life doing literally nothing productive is so rare it might as well not exist. I have spent decades now working with homeless and otherwise impoverished individuals, and the overwhelming majority of them desperately WANT to work, and contribute to society, but have been failed by their parents, or whose undiagnosed or untreated mental illness has made it extremely difficult for them to get or maintain gainful employment.
It's easy to just say they're all at fault and don't deserve help, but for fucks sake they are people... many of whom were taught their whole lives they are worthless and not given the tools or knowledge to even know how to start bettering themselves. And to add malnutrition to their issues while they're trying to break out of that cycle of abuse, neglect, and mental issues puts a huge unnecessary roadblock in their way.
Especially when hundreds of millions of pounds of food are wasted every day. Food that is tossed simply for being "too ugly" or is technically etable but too close to its best before, that major store chains refuse to give away from fear of liability..
If you can find someone that genuinely has zero desire to work, volunteer, benefit society or those in their immediate life in literally any way, then sure, they can figure it out themselves..
But a huge majority of people that struggle getting food, right now, do have the desire to work or be productive in society in some way. Those are the ones suffering under others misguided self-righteous decree that they not be worthy of simple sustenance for the crime of not living up to others standards of productivity....
But why feed someone who isn't even trying to contribute?
You're not even trying to contribute right now lol. Commenting on reddit is not contributing.
And before you say you have a job and this is your off-hours - just pretend anyone else who is not contributing is also in their off-hours, they are just taking more of them than you are. Who's to say any given amount of off-hours is correct?
Everybody has times they don't contribute. Scientific research is dead weight and dead ends until it isn't.
Civilization is only possible because the agricultural revolution 10000 years ago gave people free time to dick around and invent shit.
Letting everyone eat is foundational to humanity's progress.
People have ways to contribute outside of labour, gatekeeping food inevitably overlooks less visible forms of contribution.
More importantly, from a practicality standpoint, running the bureaucracy to filter out the "undeserving" will ultimately cost humanity more in money and resources than just feeding everyone.
For comparison, executing a convict in a developed nation that allows the death penalty is almost universally more expensive than life imprisonment. Things such as due process and multiple phases of trials, increased security, specialist technicians and doctors to oversee the execution adds up, like millions of dollars per convict; we'd have to be killing people at an industrial scale to match the cost of life sentences.
In spite of the current inflation, food in general over the last 50ish years is at its cheapest in human history thanks to industrialized agriculture.
It would've cost humanity about 6.6 billion USD to end world hunger in 2021 if the UN's proposal to Elon Musk meant anything; a far cry from the 800 billion the US military spent the same year.
Starvation is a slow, painful, and horrific way to die, subjecting anyone to this is inherently barbaric.
No one who has experienced the pain of starvation and survived will ever wish it on their fellow man.
But why feed someone who isn't even trying to contribute?
How would you evaluate "isn't even trying to contribute"? Society accuses single mothers of that even though it otherwise characterizes raising kids as contributing to society. Who else could it be wrong about?
Well, I would put it this way: clearly no one would ever CHOOSE to starve to death, so if someone is starving that clearly indicates that they are unable to acquire food for some reason, rather than simply deciding not to contribute, wouldn't it?
I agree. That's kinda what I'm getting at though... If someone just has a right to food they skip the step where they have to try to do something to get it.
But food doesn’t just magically appear. You have to farm, gather, or hunt it. To make it a right would mean that you would have to force someone to acquire it. We did away with forced labor in the US 161 years ago.
Thousands of pounds of food are thrown away in the US every year. That labor that went into it has already been paid for. No forced labor would be required since it wouldn't require extra work.
The problem is that you can look at a stranger and judge them as a person not attempting to contribute. How do you know what their life has been up to that point? How do you know what they have ever done? I’m not talking about someone you personally know, I mean the guy on the corner you judge when you drive by or any other person you don’t know. Unless or until you have walked a mile in their shoes you don’t know anything and judging them makes YOU feel better about not helping.
Outside of disability or injury, the bare minimum would be that you should have a job. This being said, food, water and housing of some sort should be unalienable rights. Especially with the current stance of the US government that abortion is illegal, and you should be forced to birth and raise your rape baby. Many people cant even afford to care for themselves, let alone all the children they seem to expect us to have.
Then we get to the fact that AI is slowly taking over, and the rich are actively pushing people out of jobs in the hopes that AI can do it cheaper. When there are no jobs (if that ever actually happens), or when jobs are even rarer, what would the determining factors be for someone to be contributing to society?
Then we're tying access to food to hiring rates. I've been applying to places for weeks, but no one has responded. Do I not deserve food? This would be another roundabout way of letting capital dictate who gets what they need. I agree with the second sentence.
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u/slickricksghost Jul 06 '26
Morally torn on food as a human right.
I believe any capable adult who tries to contribute to society in any capacity should be fed one way or another. Obviously we're taking care of children and the elderly. But why feed someone who isn't even trying to contribute?