[nyolfen]

> "That's helping people" doesn't really say anything. It's extremely vague. Moreover, it's clear that not everyone helped since abject poverty and hunger are a thing, regardless of where you live.

this is less true than it has ever been in human history; the only places with true famines in the modern world are those cut off from global markets by war, or dysfunctional states that are cut off from global markets like NK. your statement is either willful blindness or some kind of bone-deep cynicism -- "nothing good has happened because bad things still exist".

[CaptArmchair]

> true famines

Beware of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

Here's some sources about food insecurity in the United States:

[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/27/912486921/food-insecurity-in-... [2] https://time.com/4477157/hunger-america-history/ [3] https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/short-history-snap [4] https://www.nap.edu/read/11578/chapter/4 [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States

I could continue on. There are entire libraries filled by countless research and public policy programs with studies and monographs on the subject.

And that's just the United States.

Hunger is a massive issue anywhere in the world. And I will bring this to the table as an established fact whenever someone praises the virtues of a concept as vaguely defined as "market economics" while omitting the realities.

> your statement is either willful blindness or some kind of bone-deep cynicism

I'm unwilling to discuss this any further having being called "blind" and "cynic".

[nyolfen]

> "nothing good has happened because bad things still exist"

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=deaths+by+starvatio...

[CaptArmchair]

That argument is a golden hammer. It can be used to render any point moot.

"People die in car crashes", "People don't have access or can't pay for healthcare", "Student debt is a massive problem", "Home ownership has become prohibitively expensive"

"Nothing good has happened because bad things still exists."

Sure, good has happened. But I'm pointing out that the "good" part shouldn't be prioritized as an absolute, nor used as an excuse to look away from the "bad things".

Read my comment again. I concluded with:

> "Market economy" only helps certain groups in certain circumstances. It's definitely not an equitable way of "helping people". On the contrary.

The first sentence literally acknowledges the "good part", the second sentence points out that this isn't an absolute and that glaring issues are facing humanity eye-to-eye.

Beyond that, I could intepret "nothing good has happened because bad things exist" as another way of you, for whatever reasons, just trying to outright hand wave the very real concerns I've put on the table.

In which case, I, for my part, am entirely unwilling to continue this discussion.

[nyolfen]

there are plenty of valid, piercing critiques of capitalism or markets, ways to highlight that things they have degraded and destroyed -- and yet you chose a critique that is not only less true than it has ever been, it is increasingly untrue as time goes on. you are shouting at the rising tide for leaving the beach dry. every system of production besides globalized markets has decisively, harshly more murderous and brutally malthusian than the present arrangement. i can only interpret this critique as a rationalization for feelings you are unable to interrogate rationally. your ability to evaluate truth is diminished by your emotions; you have a despair or hopelessness searching for its cause.