[mindcrime]

I have considered that notion for a long time, but ultimately dismissed it as pure nonsense.

Alright, glad we have you here to save all the stupid poor people from themselves. After all, if someone is poor, they must be stupid. Or lazy. Or both. FSM knows, they need some philosopher-kings to come along and show them the light.

[k-mcgrady]

You realise you're the only person in this thread that is classifying poor people as 'stupid'? Nobody else has. You're the one making lazy generalisations and it's not adding anything to the discussion.

[mindcrime]

Let's not get into silly quibbling over language... "I didn't explicitly use the word stupid, so I didn't say they were stupid". Right. Language doesn't work that way. If you say somebody is stupid in an indirect fashion, you're still saying they're stupid.

I think part of it is the culture of believing you can be anything you want to be. It's the same reason the poor often vote against their interests in the US - they believe that soon they'll be rich and want low taxes and few regulations. That they are the exception.

Implied in every single sentence of this paragraph is and underlying sentiment of: "this is a false belief and they are stupid for holding it."

And ALL of that aside, nobody has really responded to my question of "why assume these people are wrong?" Except that camel guy who basically said "no, they're stupid so there is no reason to consider that."

So we're back where we started. I say that poor people who vote for lower taxes and the like, may actually be making a perfectly rational decision. It may not be a optimal decision if you only take financial outcomes into consideration but it may still be rational... because the people making the decision may not be basing it on financial considerations to exclusion.

[enraged_camel]

Please respond to the entirety of my post instead of cherry-picking, thanks.

[mindcrime]

I'll reply to what I feel like replying to, thanks.