Banning begging altogether

[Ethel mermania]

I am in favour of banning begging when begging has become unnecessary

Careful. Wanting to keep people from being poverty stricken is apparently like Venezuela, or something.

google "venezulea"... they're not doing too good

In the US I think poor mental health is the primary cause of begging, than. Having better systems and processes in place for the mentally ill will do more to alleviate public begging than anything else.

[Diarcesia]

I'm begging, begging you

To never have a ban on that, baby

[Limonovshchina]

My guy, even the extremely discredited Black Book only claims 100 million, over a period of about 100 years.

Actual numbers prove capitalism kills that many every half decade (I misremembered when I said every 20 years in my previous post).

Now, if you want to dispute the accuracy of those sources, by all means, give me better data, but we can clearly see that by withholding necessary resources from those that need it, capitalism kills 20 times more people per year than even the most overblown figures have claimed communism (not that what the USSR and its puppets, and the PRC, have ever actually been communist) did.

Gren, this is some of the most intellectually dishonest garbage I have ever seen on NSG, and it's not for lack of competition.

First off, the problems you cite as "caused by capitalism" have existed since before the invention of capitalism, and they are not unique to capitalist societies. At a glance, poverty.com and unwater.com appear to be discussing issues on a global scale, without sorting statistics by the ideology of the responsible governments. When people criticize communism, they generally don't include deaths from countries that aren't communist. That's probably why global totals are higher than the number of deaths attributed to communism.

Your graphic also seems to have the citations backward. You've cited a hunger-related website for statistics on water, and a water-related website for statistics on hunger. The chop.edu site was not immediately obvious where to find the stat you cited, or any other relevant information, but it's possible I just didn't dig enough.

The numbers may be accurate global death tolls, but you haven't established that they are all caused by capitalism. There is a mix of financial, logistical, political, and military reasons why people don't get what they need. Sometimes capitalist profit-seeking plays a role, but sometimes there are other reasons.

Furthermore, you are not using per capita numbers that adjust for how many people are living under each system.

Suddenly logic and reason come into play when your preferred social system is under attack which I doubt come into play when the system you wouldn't prefer is under attack.

[Ethel mermania]

Gren, this is some of the most intellectually dishonest garbage I have ever seen on NSG, and it's not for lack of competition.

First off, the problems you cite as "caused by capitalism" have existed since before the invention of capitalism, and they are not unique to capitalist societies. At a glance, poverty.com and unwater.com appear to be discussing issues on a global scale, without sorting statistics by the ideology of the responsible governments. When people criticize communism, they generally don't include deaths from countries that aren't communist. That's probably why global totals are higher than the number of deaths attributed to communism.

Your graphic also seems to have the citations backward. You've cited a hunger-related website for statistics on water, and a water-related website for statistics on hunger. The chop.edu site was not immediately obvious where to find the stat you cited, or any other relevant information, but it's possible I just didn't dig enough.

The numbers may be accurate global death tolls, but you haven't established that they are all caused by capitalism. There is a mix of financial, logistical, political, and military reasons why people don't get what they need. Sometimes capitalist profit-seeking plays a role, but sometimes there are other reasons.

Furthermore, you are not using per capita numbers that adjust for how many people are living under each system.

Suddenly logic and reason come into play when your preferred social system is under attack which I doubt come into play when the system you wouldn't prefer is under attack.

In theory, Truth counts in any conversation. In the post monitor was responding too there wasn't any.

[Arpasia]

Where would the beggars start again after their imprisonment?

[Jabberwocky]

Eliminate poverty and begging will disappear.

[Limonovshchina]

Suddenly logic and reason come into play when your preferred social system is under attack which I doubt come into play when the system you wouldn't prefer is under attack.

In theory, Truth counts in any conversation. In the post monitor was responding too there wasn't any.

In practice, it very much doesn't and the appearance of science, facts, logic, reason, evidence, following the rules of debate and anything else people connect to truth or reality is used to maintain the social status quo. Reality, not just history, is written by the victor and as such biased towards the victor or more directly those who hold the strings.

[Ethel mermania]

In theory, Truth counts in any conversation. In the post monitor was responding too there wasn't any.

In practice, it very much doesn't and the appearance of science, facts, logic, reason, evidence, following the rules of debate and anything else people connect to truth or reality is used to maintain the social status quo. Reality, not just history, is written by the victor and as such biased towards the victor or more directly those who hold the strings.

Making up a false narrative to support policy choices never ends well.

[Limonovshchina]

In practice, it very much doesn't and the appearance of science, facts, logic, reason, evidence, following the rules of debate and anything else people connect to truth or reality is used to maintain the social status quo. Reality, not just history, is written by the victor and as such biased towards the victor or more directly those who hold the strings.

Making up a false narrative to support policy choices never ends well.

In our horribly individualistic reality, poor people and beggars are lazy and they caused their own situation. Whether or not you think that to be the case, it is still The Truth^TM.

[Ifreann]

...When people criticize communism, they generally don't include deaths from countries that aren't communist...

Calculations of the death toll of communism are known to include Nazi soldiers killed by the Red Army during WWII. Which arguably were deaths caused by communism. Hitler didn't invade the Soviet Union on a dare, he believed that "Judeo-Bolshevism" was an existential threat to the Aryan race. Fascism attacked communism and communism defended itself, costing many fascists their lives. But one might alternatively consider those to be casualties of fascism, as fascism started the conflict. Either way, it goes to show the insincerity of originators of the argument. No reasonable person thinks that communism is bad because the Red Army killed Nazis.

[GENSOC]

...When people criticize communism, they generally don't include deaths from countries that aren't communist...

Calculations of the death toll of communism are known to include Nazi soldiers killed by the Red Army during WWII. Which arguably were deaths caused by communism. Hitler didn't invade the Soviet Union on a dare, he believed that "Judeo-Bolshevism" was an existential threat to the Aryan race. Fascism attacked communism and communism defended itself, costing many fascists their lives. But one might alternatively consider those to be casualties of fascism, as fascism started the conflict. Either way, it goes to show the insincerity of originators of the argument. No reasonable person thinks that communism is bad because the Red Army killed Nazis.

Indeed, some would argue killing Nazis was the highest achievement of communism.

[HISPIDA]

Calculations of the death toll of communism are known to include Nazi soldiers killed by the Red Army during WWII. Which arguably were deaths caused by communism. Hitler didn't invade the Soviet Union on a dare, he believed that "Judeo-Bolshevism" was an existential threat to the Aryan race. Fascism attacked communism and communism defended itself, costing many fascists their lives. But one might alternatively consider those to be casualties of fascism, as fascism started the conflict. Either way, it goes to show the insincerity of originators of the argument. No reasonable person thinks that communism is bad because the Red Army killed Nazis.

Indeed, some would argue killing Nazis was the highest achievement of communism.

what, some wouldn't argue?

[Existential Cats]

Beggars are a nuisance, but rounding them into prisons and fining them does nothing to address the systemic problems. Neither would employment, since let's be honest, many people would prefer homelessness to working a crappy fast food job where there's no mobility and you feel like a complete embarrassment.

[Maricarland]

Beggars are a nuisance, but rounding them into prisons and fining them does nothing to address the systemic problems. Neither would employment, since let's be honest, many people would prefer homelessness to working a crappy fast food job where there's no mobility and you feel like a complete embarrassment.

The answer to guarantee everyone housing as a right, guarantee everyone who wants to work a job doing useful and customized work, have universal basic services, provide the population a social dividend, and enhance labor power with a $30 minimum wage indexed to both inflation and productivity, shorter workweeks, better labor regulations, unions, co-determinism, cooperatives, and usufructs.

[Ifreann]

But problems with the calculations of the death toll of communism aside, why shouldn't we count everyone who dies for lack of clean water or some other abundant resource as a death caused by capitalism? For all that a few places make efforts towards socialism, capitalism is the dominant economic system of the world. It isn't Venezuelan or Cuban socialism that controls the global supply chains that move resources around the world, it is capitalism. Lack of clean water isn't a problem unique to capitalism, plenty of people died drinking dirty water under feudalism, but capitalism currently controls all the clean water. You can't say blame Stalin or Castro or King George when Shell poisons half the rivers in your country and Nestlé buys up the rights to bottle the other half.

[Maricarland]

But problems with the calculations of the death toll of communism aside, why shouldn't we count everyone who dies for lack of clean water or some other abundant resource as a death caused by capitalism? For all that a few places make efforts towards socialism, capitalism is the dominant economic system of the world. It isn't Venezuelan or Cuban socialism that controls the global supply chains that move resources around the world, it is capitalism. Lack of clean water isn't a problem unique to capitalism, plenty of people died drinking dirty water under feudalism, but capitalism currently controls all the clean water. You can't say blame Stalin or Castro or King George when Shell poisons half the rivers in your country and Nestlé buys up the rights to bottle the other half.

What we calculate is the amount of people who realistically could have had clean water but are deprived of it due to market forces, private ownership of the clean water, or the demands of wage labor.

Here is an approximately 6 minute video about the death toll of capitalism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HjTfm_D3sE

[Occult Pasadena]

Rather sad when the obvious solution is to simply house people that society tries everything else first. Often some of the cruelest, meanest alternatives, too.

[Page]

No, someone who resorts to begging doesn't care about being arrested (in prison everything is free) and most likely he/she will be back at begging once he/she is released. Maybe end economic inequality instead

Yeah, that's why everyone in financial trouble goes out and commits a crime so they can go to prison where their survival needs will be met. That's totally a thing.

[Limonovshchina]

No, someone who resorts to begging doesn't care about being arrested (in prison everything is free) and most likely he/she will be back at begging once he/she is released. Maybe end economic inequality instead

Yeah, that's why everyone in financial trouble goes out and commits a crime so they can go to prison where their survival needs will be met. That's totally a thing.

Yeah, that is what he said. Not.

Quips aside, that's some people's tactic to survive the winter here and in other places. He's spot on about ending economic inequality and you're only seething.

[Spartakus Germany]

...When people criticize communism, they generally don't include deaths from countries that aren't communist...

Calculations of the death toll of communism are known to include Nazi soldiers killed by the Red Army during WWII. Which arguably were deaths caused by communism. Hitler didn't invade the Soviet Union on a dare, he believed that "Judeo-Bolshevism" was an existential threat to the Aryan race. Fascism attacked communism and communism defended itself, costing many fascists their lives. But one might alternatively consider those to be casualties of fascism, as fascism started the conflict. Either way, it goes to show the insincerity of originators of the argument. No reasonable person thinks that communism is bad because the Red Army killed Nazis.

Fascism was founded specifically as a counter to Marxism, and largely because Il Duce was a disgruntled former editor of Avanti who was fired for taking bribes from the French to support the Great War. Incidentally, the "Il Duce" title predates Mussolini's defection from the far Left, when he was referred to as "the duce (leader) of revolutionary socialists." Basically, the head of the radical wing of Italy's socialist party. The forerunner to her Communist Party. Irony there, that the Fascist and Communist Parties of Italy were essentially founded by the same fellow, but that's treachery for you. Mussolini was truly the Benedict Arnold of Italian leftism.

But I digress. My main regret about German Communism is that it stopped being Luxemburgist/Spartacist and became Stalinist instead. While not a Marxist in real life per se, I have more RL sympathy for the Spartacists than for the later incarnation of German Communism. That being said, I'd take Honecker over Hitler any day of the week and twice on Sunday and wouldn't bat an eye, and not just because of my Jewish ancestry. Sure, the Red Army and Stalin committed atrocities during the war, but quite a few of their victims were SS and other Nazi scum.

[Kubra]

Rather sad when the obvious solution is to simply house people that society tries everything else first. Often some of the cruelest, meanest alternatives, too.

One observation by Orwell in his time as a homeless man in London was that the various regulations weren't even particularly useful, they largely just kept folks who were like him in their present state with little recourse.
I read a bit of homeless lit, and this remains the consensus: unless you give folks a place to restart and get their bearings, you just don't get out of the pit.

[GuessTheAltAccount]

Fascism was founded specifically as a counter to Marxism

By that logic, you could blame capitalism for Marxism, since Marxism was dreamed up specifically as a counter to capitalism.

Just saying.

[Occult Pasadena]

Calculations of the death toll of communism are known to include Nazi soldiers killed by the Red Army during WWII. Which arguably were deaths caused by communism. Hitler didn't invade the Soviet Union on a dare, he believed that "Judeo-Bolshevism" was an existential threat to the Aryan race. Fascism attacked communism and communism defended itself, costing many fascists their lives. But one might alternatively consider those to be casualties of fascism, as fascism started the conflict. Either way, it goes to show the insincerity of originators of the argument. No reasonable person thinks that communism is bad because the Red Army killed Nazis.

Fascism was founded specifically as a counter to Marxism, and largely because Il Duce was a disgruntled former editor of Avanti who was fired for taking bribes from the French to support the Great War. Incidentally, the "Il Duce" title predates Mussolini's defection from the far Left, when he was referred to as "the duce (leader) of revolutionary socialists." Basically, the head of the radical wing of Italy's socialist party. The forerunner to her Communist Party. Irony there, that the Fascist and Communist Parties of Italy were essentially founded by the same fellow, but that's treachery for you. Mussolini was truly the Benedict Arnold of Italian leftism.

But I digress. My main regret about German Communism is that it stopped being Luxemburgist/Spartacist and became Stalinist instead. While not a Marxist in real life per se, I have more RL sympathy for the Spartacists than for the later incarnation of German Communism. That being said, I'd take Honecker over Hitler any day of the week and twice on Sunday and wouldn't bat an eye, and not just because of my Jewish ancestry. Sure, the Red Army and Stalin committed atrocities during the war, but quite a few of their victims were SS and other Nazi scum.

Which is why it's perfectly fair to ban the swastika and not the hammer, sickle, and star.

[Occult Pasadena]

Fascism was founded specifically as a counter to Marxism

By that logic, you could blame capitalism for Marxism, since Marxism was dreamed up specifically as a counter to capitalism.

Just saying.

I doubt that he was blaming Marxism for Fascism. He was blaming Mussolini's egotism and narcissism.

[Occult Pasadena]

Rather sad when the obvious solution is to simply house people that society tries everything else first. Often some of the cruelest, meanest alternatives, too.

One observation by Orwell in his time as a homeless man in London was that the various regulations weren't even particularly useful, they largely just kept folks who were like him in their present state with little recourse.
I read a bit of homeless lit, and this remains the consensus: unless you give folks a place to restart and get their bearings, you just don't get out of the pit.

Because the fat cats need their lumpenproletariat, their underclass desperate enough to be scabs whenever strikes break out. Not saying that the homeless would or wouldn't go for it, but that's at least part of the motive behind that, I suspect.