Re:A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty
by zeroname on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @01:51PM
(#19146284)
We're looking into the question of whether poverty is going up or down. We're not figuring out the solution to poverty.
Let's say I point to improved cancer mortality (on average, of course) as a result of human progress, are you going to argue that it's all irrelevant since some people still die from cancer? You're simply straying from the topic.
> And how useful is the "global average is getting better" to people who want to raise kids well-fed but currently cannot?
Not useful at all, obviously. Kids can't eat statistics. They also can't eat your HN comments, for that matter.
Re:A letter to Steven Pinker about global poverty
by vokep on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @01:43PM
(#19146213)
>And how useful is the "global average is getting better" to people who want to raise kids well-fed but currently cannot?
Very much so. Those same people in the past, instead of worrying about feeding their kids well, would be worrying about feeding their kids anything at all, they'd be worrying if the kids even have a chance at survival.
> Again, that's not the point.
If that's not the point then any other discussion is tragically irrelevant.
The "global average is better" is a meaningless assertion. Everybody in the world has roughly one testicle. How useful is that piece of info?
And how useful is the "global average is getting better" to people who want to raise kids well-fed but currently cannot?