House of Eratosthenes

Heading out to the dreaded shopping malls yesterday I was listening to Mike McConnell’s show and I heard an interesting take on poverty. What poverty is, McConnell asserted, is a collection of natural consequences that spring from a single action. And the action is, when one is unable to afford to have kids, or to have a certain number of kids, to go ahead and have ’em anyway.

He was adamant that it worked the other way as well: If one seeks to end poverty, all one has to do is find a way to stop people who can’t afford to have kids, from having them.

If those both hold true, then this is a virtual definition.

It seems at first blush a bit simplistic, but when I think on it, it does make more sense than the various ways we more conventionally confront the problem. Some childless guy can’t get a job and ends up homeless — that isn’t really what we call “poverty,” is it? And if our various social issues were limited to that and nothing more, it would be solved pretty easily. People multiplying in localities unable to support the population with the natural resources immediately available…that is poverty. We solve it by means of mass communication. Somebody goes out with expensive television equipment, and it’s always a guy or a gal with a double-chin and a waist size of at least 40. Talks into the camera with a barely-alive little girl in his arms with a bloated belly and bones sticking out of her skin and uses the words “won’t you please” in some sentence or another. Some guy like me looks at that and says “well, I suppose I should, but I just can’t get past how well fed this guy is; no matter how I try to explain what’s going on here, it boils down to someone not dealing straight with me.” But someone sends in the checks — nobody says anything about the overpopulation problem that is the cause of this poverty, and next year the problem is even worse.

Sounds a lot like Nazi dysgenics principles, to say such a thing. But it isn’t. “Grandfather” in everybody who’s made it past the birth canal. Then go ahead and reproduce in whatever numbers you want, regardless of race color or creed. Just be able to afford it, that’s all — or else, don’t. Poverty gone.

Is it? I think so. Maybe with that, and Sam Kinison’s rule about living where the food is.

I dunno, maybe this does make me a big ol’ meanie. But the more I think on it, the less sense I think our conventional strategies make. There is no human activity more worthy of what we typically call “planning,” than making a family. But when we talk about “family planning” what we are usually talking about is putting more money and political power into family clinics, which then hijack our systems of justice so our laws can be twisted around and keep it legal to have abortions. It ends up being an exercise in making sure every abortion that can possibly happen, happens — having a lot more overlap with dysgenics than anything McConnell said that I paraphrased above.

And then when poor women produce large numbers of children, we move things around to make it all work so that every mouth is fed. And we should. But the next baby is coming, and the next, and the next…in households that, for whatever reason, simply can’t afford it. We’re told we become a more civilized society when everybody looks out for everybody else, and we believe it — with absolutely no reason provided to us to think such a thing. All incentive for closing up the baby factory, is gone, and so the babies continue to be pumped out where nobody can afford them…and so we all end up taking care of each other’s problems, a little bit MORE than we did the year before.

America has a very high standard of living. Those countries that live in poverty, by definition, have much lower standards. The other countries don’t end up emulating America — quite the reverse. America has installed a system in which un-poor people provide for the poor people, who then crank out more babies because no worries, someone else is taking care of the babies. So the well-off country is emulating not-well-off countries, dismantling the capitalist system that has made the higher standard of living possible in the first place. The not-well-off countries do not emulate the well-off country.

If a space alien landed here from a distant galaxy, or a man frozen in time 2,500 years ago was thawed out and reawakened, with the new arrival sufficiently strong in cognitive thinking and communication skills but completely unaccustomed to the events of recent generations…would you be able to explain it to him in a way that makes some sense? Because I wouldn’t. And if you can’t either, and the new arrival somehow manages to reconcile the information with people just being…kinda strange…what follows next has a better shot at leaving him absolutely flabbergasted.

We have this canard going around that the “root cause of terrorism” has something to do with this stuff we call poverty. There is some anecdotal evidence to support this, and a lot of people believe it, even though they recognize it as political agitprop. If that is really the case, it would make it even more urgent to fight poverty in a logical manner. But…we don’t. We just keep writing checks, in so doing, paving the way for more babies to come into the world. We find ways to feed the babies using socialist practices and economic models that history has shown to be more of a precursor to poverty rather than any kind of scourge. And in so doing, make it possible for more babies to be born into families that can’t afford them. We call this eradicating poverty, even though nobody who thinks on it for more than a couple minutes will conclude that it really is.

We recognize cognitive dissonance as something that may be a problem for us from time to time, but when it comes to making sure terrorism doesn’t happen, we’re immune. That issue is just too important. And so on that, if on none other, we are cool-headed, rational thinkers. No cognitive dissonance here. Well…au contrair. When one presumes poverty causes terrorism, in whole or in part, one is forced to conclude we’re really not giving the terrorism fight our all.

Nuance, I love that word. It can be used to cover a whole raft of foolishness. I especially like it when the folks who use it actually end up with a trivial solution to problems.

The folks who claim this say they can solve terrorism, or poverty, or global warming, or whatever, with… money, moola, cash.

The folks who have it are the cause of the problem and need to give it to the folks who don’t, voila problem solved. Bah humbug.

Merry Christmas to All.
- Allen L | 12/23/2007 @ 16:58
I can think of a few other things as being behind poverty. Lack of planning, no foresight, unwilling to delay gratification, lacking prudence, lacking sense, lack of initiative, jealous of success, dependent.

But they aint nice, so we’ll have to disregard them. 🙂
- mythusmage | 12/24/2007 @ 00:16
Great point, and I’m going to have to agree.

It’s worth noting, however, that if you read between the lines that the word “poverty” has to apply to an everlasting inability to escape the indigent condition (my dictionary is ambiguous on this question), then this doesn’t quite hold up. And I think that’s what McConnell was addressing, in context. People who are “locked in,” lacking the means to escape, independently or otherwise.
- mkfreeberg | 12/24/2007 @ 10:08
“Just be able to afford it, that’s all — or else, don’t(reproduce). Poverty gone.”

Careful. Stuff like that might get you kicked to the curb as some puritanical oppressor who’s not tolerant & open minded to the idea that folks simply can’t keep it in their pants or held responsible for their actions.

We’re merely animals, after all.

Good stuff.

Merry Christmas.
- locomotivebreath1901 | 12/24/2007 @ 12:40

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McConnell on PovertySunday, December 23rd, 2007

McConnell on Poverty
Sunday, December 23rd, 2007