Unfairness of Life and Welfare/Entitlements

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There is a difference, someone with extrinsic motivation is less likely to value the process, which effects his or her performance on more complicated tasks.

http://www.selfdeterminationtheory.org/ ... erRyan.pdf

http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/ ... Impact.pdf

This, in a sense, is a part of the problem with "welfare dependency."

If you learn from a young age how to "work the system" to get everything you need (and perhaps more) by exploiting the welfare system, you have no incentive to go out and earn a living. The bridge between being cut off and being equally supported by your own earnings is fairly vast (if you calculate the value of all a welfare recipient could get by "working the system").

Some do not do this because they have a moral issue with deliberately taking stuff from the system rather than earning it, but not everyone shares this value. For those, you must give them an incentive to get off the system. It could be frequent inspections to see if they indeed need what they are getting or if they are illicitly getting income on the side to live larger than they should be on public assistance.

If we had a system that provided all you NEEDED to survive, what would motivate people to work if all they care about is sitting about all day and watching TV or reading books? Should society support those uninterested in doing their "fair share" to contribute to society?

Let's look at it from a different perspective. Would you as an employer want someone like this?

I have been thinking about this. I think I have an idea.

I say anyone can get on welfare and everything is provided to them under the following conditions.

a. Reproductive abilities from both genders are cut off. Reproduction is taken away. Sex is not allowed and off limits.
b. Their freedom is curtailed and they have to be in certain camps which will have housing similar to apartments. They would not be allowed to leave certain zones. They will be allowed to have internet.
c. To get out of this arrangement they have to agree to the following.
d. They're told when to eat and when to get up.
e. No illegal drugs are allowed.

I. training on how to obtain and keep a job and the job itself.
II. training to Manage their own fiancés and other life skills.
III. Once they graduate they can go back to these camps anytime under the conditions of the camps.

What do you think of my idea?

This, um, person might like your camp:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w_iW9DzG-g0

Purpose,

life becomes dull when you do nothing but consume. Having robot slaves do EVERYTHING for us might sound good to some people on paper. I think would make for a pretty mundane existence. Asking why people would want to work is like asking why some people like their transmission manual, and people who perform physical activities are happier. Mind is not separate from body.

I believe they should be entitled to a ration of raw ingredients. If they want cooking services they will have to contribute. If there are not enough people outside farming, we would know and we would volunteer for our survival. I believe most people think its reasonable to spend a little time outside to get food in our bellies.

Ahahahaha

^this is by far not the norm. A lot of people in my immediate neighborhood work full time (and even more at the only part time jobs they can find) at crap jobs and still have to rely on food assistance. The only grocery store within a reasonable distance charges 30-40% more for food than the superwalmart 25 miles away, and the limited selection of produce is bottom of the barrel garbage. They don't even carry lobster or prime meats because they know their customer base cannot afford it. The only place I have seen this sort of "luxury" food shopping is going on is when I am watching conservative based "news" or reading conservative based "news." Or when they try to say seafood is a luxury food in a seafood town. Most people here go to the library for the internet, and have landlines or cheap pay as you go flip phones. I have seen a few iPhone folks here, but they are not getting rich off of government assistance; it is cash via not so legal means (but there have been some serious crack downs on the heroin and meth lately, so less than there used to be).

Food assistance pays squat. Welfare pays squat. Unless you spent a long time working, disability pays squat. This section of the city is what is considered a food desert. When I was in the crap apartment building a few blocks away, a kid there was diagnosed with rickets. Rickets! And a few months back there were several cases of scurvy!



The incentive is to stop feeling ashamed. To be able to feed your kids enough for them to be healthy. To be able to move out of a dangerous area that has sh*tty, underfunded schools. To stop being treated as subhuman by those who have not had to struggle. To stop having to fight over cans on the side of the road for a pittance at the recycling center. To stop having to sell plasma so they can heat their homes and buy their kids' school supplies. You act as if people needing assistance are proud of the fact, but the reality is that most are quite ashamed.

I have been on several government assistance programs over the years and I can guarantee you that it is not enough to live a life that has any sort of quality, especially if anything at all comes up besides food, rent, and electricity. If government assistance was not available, I would not have made out of abject poverty. And before you start talking about doing without or selling your things, I did all of that, and cashed out the IRA I had built up during my time in the service, but I still racked up a huge amount of debt which I have only recently finished paying off nearly a decade after the fact (student loans are all I have left). At one point I was so hungry that I actually stole food. And if I had been caught, I would have been held up as yet another example of how horrible poor people are.

Before you start to whine and b*tch about people on government assistance and how great they have it, move to an urban area like mine and just open your d*mn eyes.

double post...

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 10 Apr 2014, 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

It certainly wouldn't help people who are legitimately on disability....I'd constantly be nervous if I knew some government official could drop my my house and get into my personal business whenever they feel like it. That would just make me feel like I'm getting treated like a criminal or something stupid could happen like I am doing dishes in my house so they decide that means I should be working. As is they already review your case after a couple years to make sure you should still be on disability.... mandatory surprise visits probably aren't the best thing and it would probably cost more tax dollars.

Also though I don't know this individual or how you know that they are for sure faking, but I think there are a lot less fakes than people assume....its not exactly easy going through all the paper work and legal crap and waiting over a year to get on disability and its not much money especially if its SSI rather than SSDI seems like there are easier ways to scam things to bring in more cash that scammers would be more likely to go after...not to say fakes don't exist but their reasoning certainly makes no sense to me. So would surprise visits really be worth the tax dollars and potential distress of disabled people having to endure them? People on disability should still have the right to privacy in their own home they didn't commit a crime by being disabled.

^well stated.
Especially when drawing attention to dollar value cost/benefit analysis. The same can be said about the legions of federal and state employees that make up the massive infrastructure to screen out as many applicants as possible. It is the same with mandatory drug testing. That is an extremely expensive endeavor to be done on a large scale, with expenditures far outweighing the savings, even with unrealistically high estimates in terms of drug use rates.
These types of things add to how many of our tax dollars are spent on these programs; something often overlooked by opponents of government assistance who put moral outrage above practicality.

Last edited by sonofghandi on 10 Apr 2014, 9:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

The thing is the welfare programs don't exactly give you things in large quantities, its not like rolling around in cash its very minimal so yeah much more beneficial to work in a lot of cases since you can make more money and get more stuff and have more financial freedom though sometimes even people working can't make enough to sustain them self or their dependents if they have any. Being on welfare is essentially scraping by in my experience. I actually did buy a nice pair of shoes for 60 dollars....the way I saw it is I might as well get a pair that will last a couple years instead of cheap, less comfortable ones that will fall apart so I have to go through the ordeal of shoe shopping in a few months again and spend more on more shoes seems rational to me.

Anyways if you can't even afford a hamburger what keeps you from being eligible for food stamps? Though with those you'd have to buy the hamburger and cook it yourself since you can only buy groceries with them.

Life with just those things - particularly what you can afford on benefits - would be very poor indeed.

If you are seriously advocating this then I think you're a facist.

There is one mountain here where almost all of them are on disability.Its jokingly referred to as "Welfare Mt."Some of them are faking it,one guy claimed he had a bad back,yet I've seen him shoot a muzzle loader that kicked like a mule,no way anyone legit could shoot that thing.But I don't want a goverment official showing up at anyone's house to snoop.Maybe see if you can find them working under the table somewhere.When food stamps were paper there was a bootlegger that would take them,you got fifty cents on the dollar for them.

I have mixed feelings about the working under the table thing...I mean if someone is working and making a substantial income but paid under the table at like an actual job then yeah they should probably be reported. However what if they are just doing something like house sitting for a family member and the family member decides to give them some money for it or agree to do a set of chores around the house for a little extra money. Also though one should be careful since it is still possible to work under a certain amount of time and still be on disability, also they have programs to try and help people get back to work whiles still being on welfare till they are able to make an income.

I agree with you on that,I don't think someone has to report birthday money or other small gifts like that,but some work steady jobs and get paid in cash and don't report it.You can turn income on and you can earn a certain amount.Your food stamp balance may go down but you don't loose Medicaid.