same old stan

[Leo]

Except that fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin. So there's that.

[Meliva]

"essentially" ending something is not what you initially claimed. You made it out like there were no homeless people in Finland. That was not the case. I'm not denying you can greatly reduce bad things, but ending them is just a fantasy that many wish were possible. Now maybe if someday we get some fancy sci-fi tech like the replicator from star trek or something similar it would be another story, but unless such a thing is possible to be made, and we eventually make it, ending our problems will only be a fantasy.

As for the drugs. Yes. They are a problem. But each individual needs to be wary and skeptical of what they consume and use on their body. There are always going to be people seeking to exploit you. So don't take drugs or eat food unless you're ready to accept the potential risks that come with it. Is what they are doing unethical? Sure probably. Is it illegal? Not as far as I know.

[Leo]

It certainly should be illegal. And the patients took what they were prescribed because they trusted their doctors, and their doctors prescribed it. I really don't think legality ever has a place in a discussion of ethics, because anything can be legal or illegal from time to time, or from government to government, and bear no reflection to how ethical said thing is.

[Meliva]

even doctors should be regarded with healthy skepticism. They're people just like us. They can mess up, they can be bought, and they can be scum. Don't just blindly swallow anything they give you, without doing a little digging first.

[Leo]

This is true. I have heard so many stories of incompetent doctors. Luckily haven't experienced any firsthand but then again I've hardly ever needed a doctor in my lifetime. So I think I've figured it out. You believe personal responsibility should fall ahead of corporate accountability. I think if a corporation is doing something they know is bad for the public and they know will hurt people but do it anyway to make them money, it's exploitation and yes, maybe people can be held responsible to some extent but we really can no longer blame individuals for the obesity epidemic or the opioid crisis when it was all orchestrated by multi-billion dollar corporations with the intent to make money off of people's poor health choices.

[Meliva]

neither should fall ahead of the other. Ideally, you should do your utmost to be as responsible as possible for your life and actions taken. You will mess up, and you will be tricked most likely. If possible, seek out legal compensation or other methods of holding corporation accountable if they do you wrong. You will live with your mistakes, learn from it, and if you're lucky make the other party that also holds responsibility for the incident pay.

Ultimately though, if you chose to take the medicine and fell for a trick, that was your decision Sure, maybe someone tricked your or decieved you into it, in which case you should try to hold them accountable, but you still need to own up that you made an error in judgement and learn from it.

A scammer can't exist without a sucker. If no one fell for tricks, scammers wouldn't be a thing. So people need to be wary of deciet and lies. Because you won't always be able to hold the other party accountable for their actions. So best to avoid falling into that pit in the firts place. Again, you're bound to fail time to time, and when you do, try your best to make them pay for their actions. But you still need to own up to your part in falling for it.

[Dmanwuzhere]

Hold on. Don't mix up the way things always have been with the way things should be. The government could pay for every single person to have the bare minimum in order to survive, and it would cost the taxpayers almost nothing compared to our other expenses. People wouldn't "live off of the system" because no one wants the bare minimum. People want money to spend on the things they like, to go out out to eat, to watch movies, to go to concerts etc. no one wants to just survive, people want to LIVE. And this is proven by countries which have implemented such programs, refered to as basic universal income, which still have great economies and no one really lives off the taxpayer dollars because it's simply not enough to have an enjoyable life. That's about as socialist as I get. I don't believe that luxuries should be socialized, because that takes away incentive for people to work. I also don't believe that business owners shouldn't make more than their employees, because that takes away incentive to run a business. I think capitalism can work, but these socialist programs are needed to keep it from being exploited, and then even if it does they are there to safeguard the poor. Let dying of poverty be a thing of the past, told about in stories but not a current reality.

WTF
FOOK YOU

The Idea that a nonworking or less paid individual, which means the individual is putting less in the system, should receive govt cash is in no way indicative of a healthy
society.
If you want to really live, then you need to really work by inventing, providing, or creating a service society will really pay you for,
This may mean educating yourself or training to enhance your desirability, thus your pay.
But the idea that you receive pay just because you exist is a level of laziness that should never be reached.

Addressing poverty in the US is as simple as working on the educational system, being tough on crime, teaching basic nutrition, and promoting the nuclear family and not having kids before your education is complete and you are married.

My eldest daughter is 28 today, She lived at home for 5 years while going to college and working to become the RN she is today.
During those 5 years, she lived rent-free so she could save for a down payment on a house and pay off her student loan.
Then she went and put her down payment on the house she wanted and is now paying on her own home and has paid off her student debt.

Now she wastes money on levels I never could or would. But she can do that as she is being a responsible adult.
I may not agree on all her spending, although her savings look good too but she is accountable as an adult to herself and is a healthy contributing citizen.
That should be the goal.

As parents, it is your role to be the government in your scenario.
5 years of no bills for 5 years of hard work equals freedom for your child from poverty.
Simple.

Your hands-out approach teaches laziness and encourages people to be less than what they can be.
Which probably leads to suicide.

Without the knowledge and skills required for well-compensated work in the modern workplace, each succeeding generation of undereducated adults merely replaces the one before it without achieving any upward mobility or escape from poverty.

[Meliva]

A big problem nowadays with the US, is that a lot of people also exploit welfare and other social systems. You have people who will sell their food stamps for cash to buy other things, women who will have more kids to get more payments from the government for child welfare, etc.

Like the old saying goes, give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach him to fish he eats for life. If you keep hand holding people, some people will only do the bare minimum to keep getting benefits and live off the government. That is not good. Now, I can support giving help to people who truly need it, like people with severe disabilities keeping them from properly entering the workplace. I've known people who had such mental problems that they more or less had the mind of a baby in the body of an adult. If you told me some of my taxes were going to be spent to help people like that, I'd support that, cause that is just saddening that some people have such mental or physical disabilities that they literally can't support themselves, but a person who's perfectly capable of working? With no real disabilities and is just poor? That has to have some serious limits. Otherwise, nothing stops that person from just mooching off the government.

[Dmanwuzhere]

This is true. I have heard so many stories of incompetent doctors. Luckily haven't experienced any firsthand but then again I've hardly ever needed a doctor in my lifetime. So I think I've figured it out. You believe personal responsibility should fall ahead of corporate accountability. I think if a corporation is doing something they know is bad for the public and they know will hurt people but do it anyway to make them money, it's exploitation and yes, maybe people can be held responsible to some extent but we really can no longer blame individuals for the obesity epidemic or the opioid crisis when it was all orchestrated by multi-billion dollar corporations with the intent to make money off of people's poor health choices.

People choose what they ingest, be it drugs or food.
I absolutely blame individuals for those choices.

If a company bags chit in a pretty package, and it becomes popular to eat, it is the fault of those who ingest the chit.
If it doesn't get bought, the company or the product will disappear.

I mean, your generation was eating Tide pods. Guess that was Tide's fault too

[Dmanwuzhere]

you're the one trying to blame the deaths that have been happening from poverty since more or less the beginning on capitalism. That's like trying to blame all the people who died in war on nuclear weapons. Folks have died from poverty long before capitalism was even thought of, let alone implemented.

What you want, isn't possible. There is always going to be imbalance, there is always going to be poverty, and there is always going to be people who exploit the system to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Every young idealist like you seem to think it's possible to make this grand utopia, and every time, they are proven wrong.

Would it be nice if every person had a nice house, plenty of food, clothes and poverty doesn't exist? Sure would. While we're dreaming and playing the I wish game, let's throw in unicorns that crap ice cream, super advanced robo servants that do all the chores, and a large harem of folks each person finds attractive to serve their every whim who are there of their own will! What other wishes you wanna throw in the bucket champ? Won't be happening but I suppose it's nice to dream

It's possible, it's been done. Finland just ended homeless. Yes they ended it. And guess what, the taxpayers aren't complaining. The money was used well and everyone is happy, because the homeless now have a place to live so they're out of everyone's way. And the results were great too, because once they had a place to live most of them chose to clean up and join the workforce. Norway has universal basic income, which covers necessities like food and water and shelter. Most countries already have universal healthcare, but here in the US we don't have it because apparently we prefer paying billion dollar corporations that will just deny our claims and raise our premiums to make more money. Anyone from these countries can correct me if I'm wrong.

You're right Mel, we will never fully solve poverty or hunger and many of the problems. But there are proven methods to deal with them and make them obsolete and time and time again capitalism gets in the way of implementing them, because someone could make money from not having those programs. That's why we don't have universal healthcare, because of lobbying from healthcare companies. That's why we don't have healthy food readily available, because we have lobbying from junk food companies and all the members of Congress hold stock in those companies as well. It's a combination of greed, corruption, and evil, that make our capitalist system the perfect vehicle for destruction. Not only that, but we have a 2 party system that time and time again fails the working class and each party constantly blames the other one for all their issues.

https://ysaatio.fi/en/homelessness-on-the-rise-in-finland/

Comparing a country of 5 million to one with over 330m isn't quite the model to look for

Also would like to see 1 million illegal immigrants introduced into the population and see how that works out