"Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich,"

As an example of how stupid our global civilization is ... Africa has more than enough wealth and natural resources to produce all the food and water it needs to feed its own people without any outside influence or control. Unfortunately, first world countries have such a stranglehold on African nations and governments that they are forever beholden to foreign aid and manipulation that they will never be able to pay off their debts ... which means African will forever pay first world countries and never be capable of standing on their own.

Also, I've been sober from alcohol and drugs for close to 30 years now .... and I'm perfectly aware of all this and think about this stuff all the time. We don't need mind altering drugs to understand how stupid, greedy and corrupt our world is, has always been and will always be until we destroy ourselves and free this planet of our own stupidity.

Yes. Though capitalism/fascism is the reason, it's not good.

Actually, it's because of capitalism. It's not a good reason but it is the reason. Everybody knows that we throw away food every single day that could literally feed the whole planet twice over. Everyone knows that we can manage to put everyone under a roof. The billionares sure as hell know this but they want to keep the status quo because they know as long as nobody actually does anything about it, they'll always be the 1% with everything—and so the rat race continues.

Wait until you hear the true story of the Irish Potato Famine and realize that not only did nobody learn from it, but most of the anglosphere seems to be towards a direct repeat of it at an even wider scale.

a system that arbitrarily concentrates most of it on a few people

It's not arbitrary.

And the reason it's so much worse now is the distribution.

If one family owned a company, they'd value long term brand loyalty over quarterly profits.

With a corporate board, they all own a piece that's easily sold, and a whole bunch of other people who don't have "enough" already. There's no focus on long term company health, just that the percent return increases.

That's just not sustainable.

So large corps but up companies, run them into the ground, then sell them off. Often replacing with shitty knockoff quality products under the same brand.

A private owner can be satisfied, a board will always demand the numbers go up.

I always get annoyed at people jump on all the justifications about how just handing someone a house isn’t enough to set these people’s lives right, and I’m like, “Right. ‘Cause the street will definitely help themselves get back on track. That lack of shelter is an attitude problem.”

I can tell you right now why nothing happens. Because those of us who have housing and a solid life are terrified it will be taken away if others are given what they worked for (I realize this to be false, however it's a very common sentiment among 30-40 year olds who own homes or property of any kind).

So, they keep voting for farther and farther right politicians because the left wants to "take your guns, land, and make you live under communism!" This is a non-exaggerated thought process of how a lot of people think.

A quick look at the Wikipedia article The world's billionaires will reveal that billionaires have an estimated aggregate net worth of 16 trillion. That's more than 2,000 dollars for every single human being on this planet. Maybe not as individuals, but as a collective, they literally have the possibility of ending world hunger. And that's only the richest three thousand or so.

Everyone else already mentioned this... Methinks the fundamental issue is wealth distribution, so yes it is capitalism. I would say it is a "good" reason as it is a major target for sociology research and politicians, and there are active efforts in some countries to reduce inequality so...

I think I was radicated by this back in second year of college... Professor mentioned something like "The US Midwest has enough production capacity to feed the entire world" when a lot of the crops went to beef production, sweeteners, or just waste

This has been an issue for a while and I think Cory Doctorow mentioned it in one of his blog posts? About the Luddites; they were not anti-technology, but saw how the productivity increases would only benefit the rich and wealthy. I suspect the current AI issue is the same, "robots replacing your job" will be a lot more positive if the replaced worker still makes the same amount via basic income/stipend by the government instead of the money being concentrated into OpenAI or Meta or somewhere

... I've wanted to talk about these for a while

A fun read is A Modest Proposal

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm

Every year capitalists kill 10 million people by withholding food, medicine, and clean water. All because it isn’t profitable to them personally.

The reason is greed, wealth facilitates the accumulation of more wealth.

Significant wealth needs to be taxed asap or the next generation will know nothing but perpetual poverty from birth until death.

A punishment for undesireability.

When you're too old, too uneducated, too unattractive, too disabled, too beligerent, or an obstacle to further extraction, you're rendered homeless.

Homelessness is a socially acceptable method of eugenics. A homeless person has no right to property or personhood. They can be abused, imprisoned, and executed without excuse or much effort.

Homelessness is, at its heart, a form of social murder.

But have you thought about all those CEOs and bilionaires of the world?

Reality is rather complicated

To put in the words of someone I truly hate, someone I deeply despise, someone who used to be part of my friends discord group but is thankfully gone now:

"You can't have winners without there being losers".

This. This is how such people see the world, and in their eyes, perfectly justify inequality.

Homelessness is a dynamic issue that doesn’t just involve available housing and food. I worked with that population for four years and the causes are drug use, mental illness, escaping abuse, poverty lack of access to banking, mail, showers, secure storage.. etc and etc.

I will blow your mind how not having somewhere to store crucial documents and having a secure mailbox can fuck you up.

Don't worry, we make up for it by having plenty of bad reasons to keep homelessness and poverty from being solved.

The less organized and fragmented the populous, the easier it is for the rich to take advantage of us.

It's because guaranteeing positive rights requires cooperation or coercion. And it turns out we're not great at cooperation.

Reagan pretty much shut down progressivism in the eighties and its only in the new millenium we have seen it come back to a level it could be implemented again. We would be in much better shape if we did not have reaganomics that looked better than it was due to the energy crises no longer being a thing.

Chat Pile - Why

Rich want to be richer. Isn't that a good enough reason?

Fuckin' socialists, putting the right of poor children to go to school above the right of billionaires to buy another mega yacht.

There is a reason, well, at least two reasons. First is greed the second is the greedy ones also enjoy the cruelty.

Depends on whether you see the primary function of houses as housing people, or as providing their owners with a competitive return on investment.

We can’t do both at once.

There's a reason they call it the tragedy of the commons.

Edit: The full paper is available online if anyone is interested. Here's a copy from a university in Michigan. https://pages.mtu.edu/~asmayer/rural_sustain/governance/Hardin%201968.pdf

But a lot of dumb reasons!

Yes this is the world. It fucked and we hope to change it. Even thought you were stoned it makes sense. Feel and house people

The world is how it is until it doesn't matter. Suffering is only temporary. Enjoy the time that you have. Can't take anything with you.