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How will learned helplessness get passed to the next generation if they don't produce the next generation?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freak80
It won't get passed on to the next generation if the person on $2000/month isn't allowed to have children. That's the whole point.
Think it through starting with the first generation. Then follow through to the succeeding ones, who will qualify on their own account when they reach adulthood.
I'll accept that we don't see eye to eye. All I have to say is ideas you proposed are already tried. Yes, I agree that birthrates among teenagers in abstinence only areas are higher than actual sex ed areas. But sex ed doesn't address the problem of generational poverty. All it does is teach kids how to have safe sex. What about the kids who intend on getting pregnant to follow the footsteps of their moms, aunts, sisters, etc.?
No, my solutions have not been tried. Watered down versions perhaps have.
And I wasn't trying to say my point on sex ed address generational poverty on it's own. I apologize if that's what you thought I was saying. It's one of many factors, which I was focusing on given the topic at hand.
This is actually a great idea if you ignore their psychological condition.
The thing about learned helplessness is it makes the person very passive. And in a lot of cases, they will intentionally sabotage their own opportunities just to keep their conditions from changing. People who are trapped in such mental state can't tell the difference between what's good and what's bad change. To them, any change is scary.
I've seen people not show up to work after they got a job that pays more than minimum wage. I've seen people not take promotions because the increase in pay would make them lose their benefits. One time, I gave my old car to this guy I know. It's a free $500. All he had to do was call the junk yard to come pick it up and give him $500 for it. I even gave him the phone number. Again, all he had to do was call the junk yard. He didn't even do that. The landlord had to eventually toll the car away. Then I got a big fat fine because the city looked it up and I was the last owner. I had to prove to them that I disowned the car.
Poor people make very counter-intuitive decisions in life. A lot of us would call them very bad decisions in life. But that's all they are capable of. You really expect them to be able to go through that program you suggest?
I'm not going to get into the moral and philosophical implications of the voluntary sterilization in return for lifelong income debate, as I'm pretty sure you are aware of all of them.
I will, however, point out that this post, if taken as a general truth about poor people and how they think, is a very effective argument against it, as are some of the other comments you have made about the culture of poverty and the role of fertility/reproduction therein.
You have mentioned young men who impregnate many girls, and girls who have lots of children at a young age to collect welfare. The latter may, in some cases, be true, but what about the young men? They gain nothing, financially, from fathering (in the simplest biological sense) all of these children, yet they do it. Some are proud of it, viewing it as a sign of manhood. The same for the girls. If a girl grows up in an environment that is, for all practical purposes, a matriarchy, she is going to look at having a child as a rite of passage, an essential part of what it means to be a woman. BTW, I hope anyone reading this will forgive my generalizations about the habits of the poor. They are not necessarily representative of what I believe, but, confronted with generalizations about what "they" do and what "they" are capable of, I can only address the question by sinking to its level.
Back to the question. If, as you say, poor people make counter-intuitive decisions, what makes you think a kid who won't use a condom because it's not manly is going to submit to a vasectomy, at any price? Why would a girl whose only role models are mothers and aunts sacrifice what may appear to be her sole opportunity to "be someone?" If your assumptions about the poor and what they will and will not do to improve their lives are correct, do you really believe this plan would be a success? The whole fertility thing, while certainly not universal among the poor, is certainly "a thing" in certain communities, as are objections to sterilization on religious grounds (and not just among poor people, either.)
I suspect that this proposal would be widely rejected, unless some of these attitudes change, and interestingly, once they change, the plan would no longer be necessary.
Now, on to those who might actually accept this interesting offer: career-oriented, childless-by-choice young professionals, some of whom might love to have surgery and a tidy monthly allowance for life, on the taxpayer's dime. I have no problem with people who are childless by choice: I am one myself. But I'm not terribly interested in helping to foot the bill for a program that could very well benefit the people who need it least.
I'm not going to comment on the whole eugenics thing but if we did on a federal level what they did in Colorado by making long-term birth control (IUD's and implants) free and more easily available to teens and women, the unintended birth rates and abortion rates would go way down. Obamacare's contraceptive mandate comes close, but there is still so much cultural/"religious" resistance to this despite overwhelming evidence that promoting (and paying for) long term birth control methods lowers unintended pregnancy rates AND abortions significantly - which should make both sides happy. It's a better use of money than incentivizing permanent sterilization for poor people.
That's ridiculous. Do you want to starve children? The poor people already can't afford their children and you want them to have even less money?
I think $2,000 with voluntary sterilization and forfeiting the voting right is a fair trade. The poor don't have to take the offer if they don't like it. This should be $2,000 per person. If they have 3 children, a single mother would get $8000 a month.
I'd even suggest to make the existing welfare available so that they have choices.
$8000.00 a month?? Lol
That's $96,000.00 a year!
Plenty of people, including me have bought homes and raised a family on far less than that.
The key was not to have kids until you can afford to..
.which is what negative financial incentives would do for people who can't figure that simple concept out for themselves.
In another thread, someone suggested the following solution to poverty. I can't remember who this person was, so if you think this was your idea please speak up.
Here's the solution. Basic income for life of about ~$2000/month to anyone with one condition: voluntarily submit oneself to sterilization. Within a generation or so, the problem of poverty will be solved.
This suggestion was written on here a few weeks ago. On the outside, it sounds horrid, doesn't it? But I cannot find anything logically wrong with this policy. Put aside political correctness for a moment. What exactly is wrong with this solution?
Permanent sterilization (let's assume that it is truly irreversible) may have some unwanted outcomes, as such extreme measures usually have. As a generalization people without children are more self centered; in some ways, they never fully mature. People without children often don't care as much about future generations because they have no vested interest. America is already veering toward hedonism, this would accelerate the pace. Essentially we would be creating a whole generation of adults that don't have much to lose.
Also as someone else mentioned, in America we don't truly have poverty except in the case where someone chooses to not have their basic needs met, or they are unable through mental illness or incapacity of getting the help to get their basic needs met. Other than that, no one is truly poor in America. Go to the Democratic Republic of Congo or Zimbabwe, to see true poverty.
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