Things I wish I was(n’t) taught as a kid
I think it boils down to this: do whatever it takes to bring food to the table. That's all that matters in the current state of society. Whichever route one takes has no importance in this time and day. Want to be a musician? Sure, but are you good enough to feed your family with your music? If you are superstar level, i don't see why not.
When i become a parent, i will advise the same thing: get a degree in a economically productive field. This is the current minimum standard to ensure my kid will be able to survive. However i will not hold him back when it comes to his interests. But unless he can prove that he is superstar level, then i would humbly suggest him to get down to earth and focus on his studies.
Been there done that, i wanted to be LeBron, i wanted to be a rockstar. But now i'm a civil servant. Life's cruel. But that's because Life is too afraid of me to give me a easy time.
Why don't poor people just kill themselves
Just a thread that i think reflects a few things:
1) the question itself: i think the basic instinct for human beings is to survive. Being poor doesn't necessarily mean not able to survive. Standards for surviving vary differently for each individual, and being financially poor, maybe the standard for surviving for them is much much lower like simple food, simple clothes, simple lodging.
To drive someone to suicide, it may be that the person has nothing to live for anymore, because he is bankrupt in some sense. Emotionally bankrupt (like a very serious breakup), financially bankrupt (due to loanshark), or self-esteem bankrupt (extreme humiliation due to some event) or something else. Being poor means the person is still not bankrupt in some sense so there's still something to keep him going, and therefore not a major motivating factor to commit suicide.
2) the comments: I don't quite understand the negative reaction to the threadstarter. When someone asks a tough question, i think most people just get clouded by emotion and don't see the question objectively. This hampers discourse, and discourages people from asking tough questions in future.
Probably the question could be better phrased like, "what motivates people to keep living even when conditions are bad?", but essentially the essence of the original question is still there.
To attack a argument, one has to attack objectively. The disagreement to the pop white paper for example, is largely baseless. Most are just angry at the figure without appreciating how and why it came about. "It's a large number, so it must be bad." This doesn't mean i endorse the proposal, but i can understand how the numbers come out. The true problem of the paper is the underlying assumptions, not the number. If it's 6.9 million true blue Singaporeans, will anyone complain still?
Oh ya to add, the comments are mostly barking up the wrong tree. The question is "Why don't poor people kill themselves?" and not "Why don't we kill all the poor people?". The 2nd question is ethically wrong, and probably the reason why it illicit such a strong negative response. People need to learn to read carefully, serious.
Learn to read. The best phrase i picked up from the Median XL forums. Brother Laz is so insightful it's bordering on scary.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=525203100836157&set=a.518622691494198.110993.518247218198412&type=1
The cost breakdown itself is actually pretty decent. What is scary to me is the comments. A lot of people put a lot of priority on things that i don't deem as necessity. If you are poor, you cut down on everything. Entertainment, food, formula milk etc. People are too fixated on living a good life. In fact, we are all living a fucking good life now, when all one needs is to just plain survive. Seriously, if you can invite someone from 3rd world country to live in SG with this amount of money, i think they can just spend 20% and save everything else.
If both my grandmas can bring up 7+ children in their time, i don't see why we can't.
3 comments:
2) I think the person asked wrongly. First he mentioned about how poor don't like being poor, so why dont they go and die. This sort of make people assumes that the TS thinks poor should go die which may or may not be true And the way he reply people makes it even worse.
Then he did not mention how poor is poor. If he have asked why don't those earning < 10k go and die. It is easy to assume he thinks that way. So diff people read poor subjectively. Some might think its the begger, some might think themselves as poor. So it is like asking the reader to GND.
So the "problem" is still the reader ah, cause i can see objectively what he is trying to ask.
And it's just funny to see how quickly everyone get so defensive over such a post.
I guess is both party's fault ba, a person who did not post a clear question and readers who didn't read it objectively.
Actually its a very simple qn with simple answer. Cause death is not the only solution, people can work their way out of poverty.
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