Mindfulness:

Poverty is not poverty, poverty is extreme poverty.
Good night!

truthsayer007:


There is no need to try and twist everything and play the victim like you are doing.

Individually if you are born poor. You can always strive to make something good out of your life. Now by doing that you have taken a step further by making sure your children aren't exactly the same as you are. Even though its a small change. It is significant to your own context.

If your children follow that lead, a few of them will break the family out of poverty surely.

As a country or Nation, if we are poor we should look for ways to capitalize on our strong resources whether human or natural resources without Corruption and Greed. China now, wasn't the way they were several decades ago. They developed themselves to this level

Having said that, everyone including yourself would have preffered to be born in a wealthy family. So its no one fault we are where we are.

Citizens of Libya and Iraq dying everyday wish they are even Nigerians. Be grateful for the little you have.

Mindfulness:


So you actually assume that I am poor or my family?

Why? Because I am aware of the fact that not everybody is poor because they are lazy?

Ever heard of the term working poor?

Ever heard of sweatshops in Asia and people who work there 12-14 hours a day and yet cannot afford access to education and medical care for themselves and their children?

The reason why Nigeria is the way it is, is the way you reason. Coming full circle to what I said at the beginning, there is a strong correlation between education and poverty and most of you have been poorly educated to assume that someone who is not blaming the poor must be poor herself.

Catalin:

You cannot have a skill and be hardworking and not be able to feed 3 square meals a day.

DarkRebel101:
Life is a chaos, and almost everything is hinged on chance.

He who works hard and diligently might end up poor, and he who llollygags all day might turn out rich.

Poverty is usually not the fault of the poor -- but sometimes it is.

truthsayer007:


I never said you were poor. But you were playing the victim card. I had to tell you. You have your opinion and you want to stand on it. Its Fine.

Acidosis:

That's a lie from the pit of hell. The same lies ignorant and illiterate thieving politicians tell young Nigerians.

They always tell you folks to go and learn irrelevant and industrial-age skills that will further plunge the citizens into penury.

Driving is a skill, it can be learned. So why do we still have poor drivers? Why do we have poor tailors? Why do we have poor farmers? Poor electricians? Poor, poor and more poor skilled LABOURERS?

We have poor tailors in Nigeria today because your f00lish politicians would rather buy you an obsolete manual machine that would require 50 doses of paracetamol and 10 hours of operation to manually produce 1 trouser. While the f00lish politicians are celebrating and taking useless photographs with an obsolete sewing machine, your counterparts abroad are producing ten thousand pairs of trouser in 6 hours with up-to-date machinery (a product of a knowledge-based economy).

We have poor tailors today because some of them still rely on the training they got 20 years ago from their "oga". They fail to recognize that the world has moved on from those useless strategies... How many of them have access to YouTube? A platform they can easily get current trends without spending a kobo.

Of course, the poor (who barely feeds) prefers to learn from an oga and go all the way to borrow for "freedom." If these people are knowledgeable (for fck sake, its not about the BSc or ND), they'll not borrow to pay any oga, instead, they'll manage their capital, learn freely on YouTube, boycott the useless local associations, get registered as a Limited Liability Company with CAC, get a website and stay focused on the Social Media (that's following the trend).

But what do we see today, a group of struggling hustling tailors eating jollof rice sourced from a struggling "graduate" who can hardly put a pair of trousers together. They party all day, whilst dancing to some Pasuma song in the name of "freedom". Yea, same freedom that will leave the poor trainees in debts for months, if not years.


In short, learning a skill is not ENOUGH! Just follow the trend, follow the knowledge-based and globalized economy, and you'll make a living. Note: following the trend doesn't mean sitting with telemundo for FCK or FUN sake. When I watch YouTube, I don't do it for any fck sake like Nollywood (I actually don't give a fck whether Ini Edo sleeps with Barack Obama). Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc., aren't for FUN only! Even our Nairaland, some people have made millions via ads..

What gives FUN to some can bring FUNDS to a knowledge-based individual.

Mindfulness:


What victim card would I play if you didn't assume I was poor?

Catalin:
Yes, its 2017 and if you are not the ignorant one you should have know the difference. I guess that's the thanks you will tell me for correcting you.
Who are you to warn me?
Anyway let me tell you the meaning of poor.

poor /pɔː,pʊə/
adjective
lacking sufficient money to live at a
standard considered comfortable or normal
in a society.
You cannot have a skill and be hardworking and not be able to feed 3 square meals a day.

Mindfulness:

They have been fed the lie by the elites who need their labor to accumulate more wealth that everyone who works hard enough will eventually make it. That's part of the brainwashing that is meant to help exploit people. Truth is that those who work the hardest, more often than not have the least. They sacrifice themselves all in the name of hard work to just survive on minimum wage and their bosses collect hundreds of millions of dollars, pounds, euros, you name it. And these dumbos glorify the rich because they believe that they must be either God's favorite children or people who worked very hard.

I am not a leftist but reading Karl Marx would help people understand how it all works - that is if they are actually able to comprehend such a complex piece.

ImpartFund:
@George22016 you are making a lot of sense.But who will create the opportunities is it the rich or the government?And then when someone steals 90million and get caught i think its good.You are not supposed to steal in the first place.But really you made a good observation about drivers getting a very small reward after returning money found in their cabs.We have a very bad reward system and this has probably made people poorer.But George do you think there are opportunities for the poor at all?These rich people put themselves in posts by connection.Do you think opportunities can be created for the poor without the manipulation of the rich and mighty?How can it be done?

DarkRebel101:


[color=#770077][b]You've said nothing other than the truth. Still, the value of hardwork mustn't be understated—even though it isn't set in the proverbial stone that by dint of hardwork one ultimately achieves success and wealth.

[...]

The combined intellectual wattage of many Nairalanders couldn't power a potato clock if their lives depended on it; I hugely doubt they'd comprehend Karl Marx's works. Lol.

You are not a leftist? Really? That chimes a bit contradictory given your submissions thus far on this forum points in the direction of you being one—your unflagging support of social/gender equality, egalitarianism e.t.c.

Clear the air.

Ranchhoddas:
@Mindfulness, you are pure class!! Some of the people on this thread are clearly not on the same intellectual wavelength as you are.

Xensity:
Nothing is the fault of anyone. I'll try my best to explain my position.

Think about this. The attainment of wealth or the inability to escape the dungeons of poverty is a result of the slew of factors surrounding our lives, and how we interact with these factors. Example of these factors include: Being born into a rich or poor family, exposure to good, bad or no education at all, being born with good or bad genes, growing up in a healthy or unhealthy environment, easy or difficult access to lots of life changing opportunities, connections with financially successful people, etc.
Now, since we aren't in control of the circumstances that hover around our lives, like the ones I mentioned above, how can the results that arise from these circumstances be our fault?

Some people would also say that whatever bad financial state we find ourselves, is the product of the decisions we make, and hence our fault, since we had the power to make the right decisions but we chose to make the wrong ones. On the surface, statements like this seem sensible, but vetting more closely, the illusion of the statement's tenability begins to crumble. You would agree with me that our ability to make decisions is controlled by our brains, and our brains are composed of thousands of neurons firing at the same time, and this mechanism is what controls the machine of thought and decision making. But is anyone in control of the functionality of their brains? Some people naturally have brains that enable efficiency in certain tasks like decision making, while some people have brains that don't function as effectively in such tasks. Would you then say that it's the fault of the later if they make bad decisions?

Also, the decisions we make, besides being governed by our brains, are also modulated by the experiences we've had in the past and the kind of mindset and ideas, those experiences have ingrained in us. This means that by dint of past experiences, some people would be better molded to function more effectively in areas that would potentiate the attainment of wealth than others. But would we now say that it's the fault the other set of people who didn't have the right combination of the experiences that would facilitate financial success, because they weren't able to extricate themselves from the quagmire of poverty?

You should also not forget the essential role luck plays in the lives of people. So people just have it easier than others. It's like some people have an aura of favor that envelopes their lives, while some just have the opposite.

I am not trying to paint being poor as a state to be comfortable with, but saying it's the fault of the poor that they are poor, is intellectually naive.

Mindfulness:

Work, hard or not, must be valued but the problem is that it is not.

And what is hard work anyway? Is the reading of philosophy books hard work?
Is the study of political history hard work? Is the management of a multinational company hard work? Is the time spent by an assembly line to manufacture some kind of rubber products that cause your lungs to turn black hard(er) work?

Why does a manager earn more in a year than low-skilled workers will in their lifetime? What determines the value of work?

The definition of hardwork is relative.

To some, it means working around the clock.

To some, it means to be buried in work until one is covered in a cascade of sweat.

To me, it means working “smart” and hard toward achieving a goal.

Hardwork is inutile if it isn't shored up with wisdom. It's like studying a History textbook rigorously in preparation for a Math pop quiz.

One can also have the wisdom, and yet lack the will to do what and all it takes in achieving one's goal.

The two must go hand in glove -- working hard and working smart that is.
The bourgeois, by combination of both qualities, are able to use the backs of the proletariat as their footstools.

In the case of the manager earning more than the low-skilled workers, other factors could also be at play:

I) Privilege e.g if he/she was born with a silver wallet in his/her mouth.

II) Chance/Luck e.g being at the right place at the right time.

III) God.

LOL

The history of socialism/communism has made me suspicious of the movement and shown that this ideology has turned states into authoritarian territories but I can vote for a left party if the rights of employees are being violated, for instance, and in the next term could vote for a party that supports businesses if the previous government failed to create an investor friendly environment. I am not too lazy to read all election programmes to decide which one will serve me and the country as a whole best instead of voting for the same party over and over again even if their manifesto is not the right one to answer pressing questions about which way we should take to get to where we want.

But 'functional illiterates' cannot do all the reading and have no knowledge of how economies work and no skills to analyse situations as to determine how challenges could be met so they often vote against their own interest and so, coming full circle, this is what I have been saying from the beginning, quality education or the lack of it does not only determine if you will get a well-paid job but also gives or deprives you of the power to be or not to be easily manipulated and exploited.

Mindfulness:


I have just seen this comment. Brilliant!

As a result, the political classes should be held responsible for creating or not creating an environment in which a) everyone has access to quality education and b) can thrive according to his/her ability. Instead, people hold foreigners (the evil white man) / immigrants (the lazy, criminal African/ the cheap Mexican) or other tribes responsible.

A smart man once said to me, they look left and right but never up, where the real power affecting their lives is.

bukatyne:
Poverty is not the fault of the people born in it however, little decisions can make their next generation slightly better which creates a ripple effect in generations enabling them climb out of poverty.

Education, financial intelligence, common sense, no of kids, right carriage etc. would make a difference.

Xensity:


Well, you can say the political classes are to blame, but then again, the emergence of these political classes were potentiated by certain factors that lead all the way back to the creation of the universe, if you follow the foot prints. So, wouldn't it be wiser to put the blame on whatever it was that orchestrated the big bang and set the stage for the inexorable emergence of political classes?

Also, the formation and structure of the political classes we have now, was influenced by previous political classes before them, and the legacy they left behind, and the earliest political classes were created because they needed to have been created to aid the progress of the human race. There needed to be rules, and resources needed to be managed, and for this to happen, there needed to be an authority that would govern all this. Power had be centralized and society needed to be stratified.

So blaming the political classes, is like saying you are not in support of how far the human race has come, and how we have spread our creative tentacles across the globe, with amazing inventions and huge strides in various fields, which have helped in the optimization of our wellbeing and sensual experience.

DarkRebel101:


The definition of hardwork is relative.

To some, it's means working around the clock.

To some, it means to be buried in work until one is covered in a cascade of sweat.

To me, it means working “smart” and hard toward achieving a goal.

Hardwork is inutile if it isn't shored up with wisdom. It's like studying a History textbook rigorously in preparation for a Math pop quiz.

One can also have the wisdom, and yet lack the will to do what and all it takes in achieving one's goal.

The two must go hand in glove -- working hard and working smart that is.
The bourgeois, by combination of both qualities, are able to use the backs of the proletariat as their footstools.

In the case of the manager earning more than the low-skilled workers, other factors could also be at play:

I) Privilege e.g if he/she was born with a silver wallet in his/her mouth.

II) Chance/Luck e.g being at the right place at the right time.

III) God.

Mindfulness:


If I rob you of your resources, will you blame the universe too?

Mindfulness:
The serial killer Jack Unterweger killed several women in the most brutal way. Most of them were prostitutes. It is said that he was particularly hateful of them because his grandfather used to bring them home and sleep with them in the same room where little Jack was sleeping. If I remember correctly, his mother was a prostitute too and left Jack as a little boy with his violent grandfather. Now we can blame her as much as we want but it will be Jack who will serve a life sentence and not his mother or grandfather.

Xensity:



I already have a philosophical and moral view that repudiates any ascription of value or moral good to the existence of the earth and whatever sentient life form that it constitutes, and the deliberate propagation and perpetuation of the existence of these sentient life forms through the vehicle of reproduction. So yes, I have already blamed the big bang for both past and future tragedies that may happen to me or anyone else.

Jack Unterweger committed those crimes because he already had the predisposition towards extreme violence, and this predisposition, which was genetically wired into him, was of course not a choice. The combination of this predisposition and other factors including the environment he grew up in, which wasn't also his choice to make, was what precipitated the violent acts he committed.
Would you then blame Jack Unterweger for being born with such a fuuucked up mental state? Would you blame him for having the predisposition towards violent acts? Would you blame him for growing up in the toxic environment he grow up in? If you wouldn't blame him for these things, which were collective prerequisites for the crimes he committed, why then would you blame him for his crimes?

The key word here is blame, not punishment. Does Jack Unterweger deserve to be punished? Yes, because he violated the law of the state, and as is required by the constitution, he needs to be punished, but should you BLAME him for the crimes he committed? No. Because it's not his fault.

Xensity:

Jack Unterweger committed those crimes because he already had the predisposition towards extreme violence, and this predisposition, which was genetically wired into him, was of course not a choice

. The combination of this predisposition and other factors including the environment he grew up in, which wasn't also his choice to make, was what precipitated the violent acts he committed.
Would you then blame Jack Unterweger for being born with such a fuuucked up mental state? Would you blame him for having the predisposition towards violent acts? Would you blame him for growing up in the toxic environment he grow up in? If you wouldn't blame him for these things, which were collective prerequisites for the crimes he committed, why then would you blame him for his crimes?

The key word here is blame, not punishment. Does Jack Unterweger deserve to be punished? Yes, because he violated the law of the state, and as is required by the constitution, he needs to be punished, but should you BLAME him for the crimes he committed? No. Because it's not his fault.

KevinDein:
have a like

DarkRebel101:


Let me guess, you're an adherent of the hard determinism school of thought?

You couldn't be more wrong. No one has evil genetically wired in him/her.



So Hitler shouldn't be blamed for the Holocaust because wickedness was planted in him by Mother Nature? I guess we should also cut Catherine De Medici some slack for the role she played in the St.Bartholomew's Day massacre?

Nonsense.

People have a choice to act as they will, save for in very extraordinary circumstances. Since we have a choice, we should equally be blamed when we veer off the straight and narrow, rather than imputing our shortcomings to external factors. That's a cowardly thing to do.

DarkRebel101:


Let me guess, you're an adherent of the hard determinism school of thought?

You couldn't be more wrong. No one has evil genetically wired in him/her.

DarkRebel101:

So Hitler shouldn't be blamed for the Holocaust because wickedness was planted in him by Mother Nature? I guess we should also cut Catherine De Medici some slack for the role she played in the St.Bartholomew's Day massacre?

Nonsense.

People have a choice to act as they will, save for in very extraordinary circumstances. Since we have a choice, we should equally be blamed when we veer off the straight and narrow, rather than imputing our shortcomings to external factors. That's a cowardly thing to do.

Mindfulness:


It is not difficult to discern a philosopher.



I would hold him responsible for giving in to his animalistic nature and I would want him to be put behind bars to protect people.




To blame someone is to hold them responsible and responsibility is the prerequisite to punishment but I agree with you, blame may be the wrong word to use here.

Mindfulness:



Are you an adherent of Kant's school of thought that morality is based neither on the principle of utility, nor on a law of nature, but on human reason?

Mindfulness:

Are you an adherent of Kant's school of thought that morality is based neither on the principle of utility, nor on a law of nature, but on human reason?

Xensity:

I never said people have evil genetically wired in them. That wasn't the phrase I used. I used the word 'predisposition,' which is, the brew of traits that can potentiate the exhibition of certain kind of violent acts, if they are met with the right environmental triggers.

Jack Unterweger committed those crimes because he already had the predisposition towards extreme violence, and this predisposition, which was genetically wired into him, was of course not a choice

But to stray a bit from the context in which we are arguing, and to address the statement you made, yes, I do believe some people have evil genetically wired in them, going by the conventional notion of evil

Choice is an illusion, and humans have evolved to not be able to perceive this illusion, and that's why my position seems counter-intuitive to you. No one has the choice to do anything. Let's say I ask you to choose a number. Whatever number you pick, wasn't a choice. The processes in your brain that facilitated the choosing of that number, wasn't controlled by you, just the same way you aren't in conscious control of the workings of your circulatory system, or nervous system, which constitutes the organ for "choice."

Whatever choice anyone makes about anything, is made under the influence of a myriad of factors, and the interaction of these factors with one another. Example of these factors include: Previous experiences, preconceived notions, the current state of mind of the individual at the time he was making the choice, the environment the individual was when he was making the choice and the workings of the brain of the individual. If the individual doesn't have control over these factors, how then is he in control of the "choice" he is making?