> At 08:32 PM 1/11/98 +0100, Erik Moeller wrote:
> >
> >It's exactly reactions like this one I expected. That happens when a free
> >market
> >capitalist gets the tool of cloning. Earn a living or die out. Everybody can
> >do it.
> >Those so-called poor people just don't try hard enough.
>
> Every person is the architect of their own future, be it good or bad.
>
> People who start poor and stay poor either 1) don't mind being poor, 2)
> make a lot of stupid choices that keep them poor, or 3) don't work hard
> enough to change their socio-economic status. Period. In the US,
> opportunities abound for a person to change their lot in life, and a person
> can take advantage of them at almost any time in their life. Whose fault
> is it if they don't take advantage of these opportunities? A clone would
> be in a situation no different than everyone else.
I can attest to the opportunities here. When I got out of the Air Force, I was
unemployable. My skills with aircraft were not needed, as airlines and aircraft
mfrs. were laying people off. I was also broke. I lived a rather scarce existence
for about 3-6 months, until I was working 3 really BS jobs. A short time later, I
went into business with two other guys based on a device I invented. That lasted
for 5 years until the bottom fell out of the energy conservation industry in '95.
Then I was again difficult to employ, but I built up the computer skills I had
learned while running my business, and now I'm working for a software company,
making more money than before, and learning all sorts of new stuff. I do computer
consulting on the side, and am working on another invention. Change is difficult,
but good, and it makes life interesting. At get togethers, I've always got lots
of stories to tell because I've done a LOT of different things.
> One thing is for certain: the government does very little to help people
> work harder or make intelligent decisions. Therefore, it should be no
> surprise that the attempts of government to control poverty (by programs
> like Welfare) do little to change the socio-economic status of the
> individual involved.
At the same time, as I've been unemployed several times, not once have I received
government support. I've applied a few times, but since I'm an able bodied white
male with no dependents, they always find a loophole to exclude me, and they try
to make the experience so humiliating that you just want to go out and shoot
yourself (which could be good or bad: if people don't like the experience, they
might be more motivated to get off their asses, as I have, but the treatment
could also act as a vicious cycle, keeping poor people too depressed with poor
self esteem to think that they can get off their asses.)