[elmerfud]

I came to look at what you define as a "real problem". The problem is you're describing are no more real than any other problem people have in front of them. Actually the problems you're describing are problems that have existed since the beginning of time and no one through all of history has come up with a broad wide scale solution to that problem because everyone, including you, are simply looking at symptoms and thinking symptoms need to be fixed.

While there is inequality between lifestyles people have, I dispute the core idea that we are living in an age of mass inequality that is greater or meaningfully different than the equality that's existed throughout all of history. If you take just a cursory glance throughout history with an honest eye you will see the inequality that existed even 100 years ago was so much massively greater than what we have today. The opportunities for people to move between social classes was nearly insurmountable 200 years ago, and even today in some countries it is an insurmountable obstacle for them to do it within their own country.

If you're living in any first world country the inequality that you're experiencing or you're viewing other people having is so much smaller than what it's been throughout all of history for all of time. So many barriers have been removed and so many opportunities exist that just weren't there before. For over 50 years in the United States and other countries people have attempted to level that inequality and it has utterly failed because it's simply looking at symptoms and addressing them. In fact it seems to have encouraged people to remain complacent and in their place rather than having the opposite effect of motivating them to find and take advantage of opportunities.

So it becomes incredibly difficult to solve this "real problem" because how do you change people's nature? Why is it that some people who come from the same backgrounds and in the same circumstances can rise out of it and others cannot? Why is it that some people no matter what kind of help and assistance you give them will always need more and never enter a self-sustaining mode? How do you change the nature of people to be something different than what they are or what they want to be? No one's figured out a way in 10,000 years of recorded history. Yet questions like this make it seem like it's a new problem when it's the same problem but that gap is much narrower and there are so many more opportunities to close that gap.

Nearly every solution that gets posed to this seems to be a wealth transfer from the rich to the poor. There is never been a wide scale instance where this has worked. It works sometimes in very limited scenarios but broadly speaking that solution fails because it doesn't address the core problem of changing the person's nature.

The one thing that no one really talks about is the massive and voluntary wealth transfer from the poor to the rich. The incessant need for idiotic things from the poorest people who are least able to afford them. This is something that has exploded in recent years with the visual stimulation we get into other people's lives. It used to be there was a phrase keeping up with the Joneses, which meant you see your neighbor get a new car all of a sudden you want a new car too. That was your scope you see your local area and you want to be on par with them. Now that scope is worldwide and I see desperately poor people spending money on the most foolish things because of this consumerism greed that we apparently can't tell them not to be that way. We can't tell them don't just blindly consume things for the sake of consumption because it's considered poor shaming and they should be able to have nice things too. That is the root problem you can have nice things when you put in the effort to get those nice things and once you understand that discipline of denying yourself nice things when you're not ready for them you will have the foundation to close that inequality.

Just a couple of examples of this in my own personal life a girl who was desperately poor but made enough money to live and potentially get ahead but she was young and poor she wanted a stuffed animal because it was cute and it was viral on tiktok or some other nonsense like that. The cost of this thing was equivalent to two weeks of food for her. She bought it and then complained how poor her life was and how she didn't have enough money for food or to save anything or get ahead. Another example so I had a friend of many years they were very poor as well working day today and always would talk about wanting to go to get some education at some trade classes so they could improve their job skills and get a better job and make more money. They were literally stuck in a rut where they were working everyday and had no time to get a better education to get a better job so they could break that cycle and start getting ahead. So I gave them enough money to live for 6 months and pay for their education so they could break this cycle and get ahead. What they did with my gift was go buy an iPhone 15. They asked me if I was upset that they bought this phone I told him no it's your money to do with what you want but this is the reason you're poor you have the opportunity to break the cycle and get ahead but you purchase some idiotic trinket that you don't need.

So I can't solve this problem and you can't solve this problem only the people who are in the situation can solve this problem it's an individual thing. The help is there but if you're not using the help correctly you'll be stuck in the same situation.