I think the point is being missed here. In an inherent sense, humans start with nothing.
We (as a society) have hospitals available which greatly decrease infant mortality. We have widely available nutrition that keeps people from starving. These are steps that we, as a society, have taken to improve upon the default state (having nothing) of humans--including fetal health. Perhaps rather than focusing on how to make people in poverty more comfortable, we should focus on how to get them out of poverty.
That's not the same as claiming all people start on a level playing field.
In no sense do people start off with nothing. People start off with the abilities or lack thereof possessed at birth. Compare a child with fetal alcohol syndrome with one without it. Do both start off with nothing? No. Clearly one has something the other does not.
This discussion is specially about wealth. Fetal alcohol syndrome is not usually added as a liability on a balance sheet, even if it is liability to everyday living. Everyone starts with a balance of $0.
> Why do people insist on believing nonsense?
Why are people trying to twist this discussion into things it never was?
Nothing is being twisted. If what you mean is that two babies have the same amount of money in their bank accounts, then that's what you should say. Of course, if one said that they would be ignored as that much is obvious.
What you should not say is that "they both start off with nothing". Wealth is more than money. In fact, wealth literally just means an abundance of possessions; prosperity. What dictionary are you using that says wealth is only measured by dollars in a bank account?
By the way, the article specifically mentions health, so...
> If what you mean is that two babies have the same amount of money in their bank accounts, then that's what you should say.
But wealth isn't an amount in a bank account? Given the earlier context of this thread, I felt my comment should have been clear enough, but granted textual communication can be difficult (especially for emotional topics where many have their response composed well in advance) and clearly I failed. I tried to clarify it on several other occasions before you commented, so any errors in conveying my original message should have been resolved before you posted yours, no?
> Wealth is more than money
Money being only a tool of measurement, I think that is a given. But that is like saying that the weather is more than temperature. Sure, but what are we supposed to take from that?
Of course individuals have different abilities. You're missing the point.
The claim is societal. We (as humans) started out with nothing. Over thousands of years, we built religions, governments, businesses, laws, science, and everything else, which ultimately resulted in a lot of us having a lot better quality of life. But our default state (as humans) is to have nothing. That some people are still in poverty shouldn't be seen like a disease to be treated--it should be seen as a condition all humans effectively default to. They just haven't benefited from all the systems and processes we've built that the rest of us have, and we should figure out how to get them to (or modify our systems so they do).
Again: This is in no way claiming each person starts on a level playing field.
Yeah, no. How can you claim we started off with nothing yet say over thousands of years we built things? Clearly we started off with something. You should be more precise in your language.
If you change "nothing", with "no possessions, talents, abilities, or skills", which is the same thing, then you'll see why what you're saying is illogical.
> Yeah, no. How can you claim we started off with nothing yet say over thousands of years we built things?
I'm not sure how to respond to this. Have you read a history book? At one point humans were in caves, with effectively no possessions and terrible lives. That was poverty, and it affected everyone. Whether or not one cave man was born smarter than the other is irrelevant.
Over time, we developed all of these systems that made life better for the vast majority of us, yet some of us still live in poverty, because the default human state is to have nothing. That in no way implies a level playing field among two different people born today.
> If you change "nothing", with "no possessions, talents, abilities, or skills", which is the same thing, then you'll see why what you're saying is illogical.
You're still missing the point. I don't know how I can rephrase this in a way that won't be intentionally misinterpreted.
We (as a society) have hospitals available which greatly decrease infant mortality. We have widely available nutrition that keeps people from starving. These are steps that we, as a society, have taken to improve upon the default state (having nothing) of humans--including fetal health. Perhaps rather than focusing on how to make people in poverty more comfortable, we should focus on how to get them out of poverty.
That's not the same as claiming all people start on a level playing field.
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