This sounds incredibly heartless – even cruel – to me. I'm sorry, but I can't put it any other way.

I'd like to think that we can transcend "survival of the fittest" just a little bit. Besides, you never know if you might need some help from others for shelter, food, or warmth in the future.

If you want to transcend it, make the world that way, for people around you. But neither nature nor the human world is like that by default.

And you can’t expect other people to share your philosophy either. Giving people shelter costs other people time and work. How will you pay for that?

What is your point? We live in a society and we're stuck with each other. We need some rules to organize this. It can't work on a "if I feel like it"-basis.

> Giving people shelter costs other people time and work. How will you pay for that?

We've been doing this kind of thing since modern humans evolved (actually, probably longer). It's just the society got larger and got organized in to nations.

I agree that it is cruel and am in favor of charity, but think it is important to be clear on the differences between rights and desires.

I am sure what you just mentioned are actually the universal human rights according to the UN..

I was curious about that; it is in Article 25 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services ..."

And this is why I have a problem with the UN declaration of human rights.If I choose to live on a Sandune in the middle of the Sahara, Who’s obligation is it to ensure these services are provided to me.That said, I would say it’s a reasonable aspiration for society to be structured in a way that this is achievable for people that want to work for it or can’t work for it, but not a right

This is why the UN declaration of rights is kind of meaningless. Rights are meaningless if there is no enforcement.

What do you consider an inherent right, then? Nothing aside from being allowed to exist?

There are negative rights and positive rights. The former is freedom from other humans doing things to and the second is requires other humans to do something for you.

I believe that only negative rights are and can be inherent.

You can build social contracts that help people get services and materials on top of this, because people care about each other.

There is no such thing as inherent right, every right must be earned or fight for.

Is/ought.

Rights are oughts, not ises, IMO. (Oughts which I believe in, but still oughts).

I agree, but this is a matter of semantics. There is nothing in the physical universe that supports morality.

Rights are components of a moral framework, inherently philosophical - unless you believe in a god. When someone says something IS a right, they are really saying "This is a fundamental assumption in the moral framework I believe to describe a just world"

What is the point of society if we can't look after everyone in it?

You can look back historically to answer that question in many ways. One common answer had to do with organizing, managing, and controlling people for the benefit of an elite ruling class. Which is still a reasonable description of e.g. US society today.

That makes sense and is an interesting argument. Do you know if there are any books that explore that thought?

It's a big topic. I don't have any single book in mind, but I can point you to some sources.

"Elite theory" in political science and sociology is closely related, e.g.: https://www.britannica.com/topic/elite-theory, which has a history going back to ancient Greece. U. Delaware's polsci department has an intro to this in the US context: https://www1.udel.edu/htr/Psc105/Texts/power.html , and there's also this article by a prof at USCS: https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/class_domination.html

Much of Chomsky's writing is concerned with such topics, e.g. https://truthout.org/articles/us-guardian-elite-rulers-date-... , which makes the point that the notion of an elite guardian class goes back to the founding of the US, and it in turn was based on ideas inherited from monarchies.

A couple of others of Chomsky's are https://chomsky.info/199606__/ or https://chomsky.info/20141202/ . These are just examples which deal with particular mechanisms of control which are used by elites to achieve outcomes in their favor.

Marx and Engels are relevant here also. Here's the opening sentence of Chapter I of the Communist Manifesto (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-m... ):

> "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

It goes on to discuss power structures in various types of historical society.

There's lots more out there - is there any particular aspect you're interested in?

I think the other posters comment is a pretty pessimistic take. Humans are inherently tribal and a banded together since before we existed as a species. This wasn’t for the advantage of top animal. It offered protection, Stability, and a way to raise young in this environment. Higher primates will share food when they have access but aren’t communes.I would posit that most historic human societies serve the same function. They provide protection from external threats and stabilize chaotic environment. Peasants received protection from their Lords in exchange for taxes. Looking into more recent human history of the US government served much the same function. There was no redistribution of wealth, and no income taxes until they were added on to fund World War I. The idea that governments acting on behalf of society have the goal of Supporting the poor is a relatively new development. National healthcare insurance was largely a development after World War II, and for most of the countries, support of the poor was handled through private charity until late In the 20th century

I was giving a pervasive example of how "looking after everyone in society" has often not really been the main goal of societies. This is consistent with what you wrote, "The idea that governments acting on behalf of society have the goal of supporting the poor is a relatively new development."

> Humans are inherently tribal and a banded together since before we existed as a species. This wasn’t for the advantage of top animal.

Modern governments are not tribal societies, though. As I've observed in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25997576 , the Communist Manifesto Ch. 1 opens with the sentence, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles," but adds a footnote about this referring to written history, i.e. history of post-tribal civilizations.

> I would posit that most historic human societies serve the same function.

Perhaps to some extent, but to help disabuse yourself of the notion of the benevolence of the ruling class in this respect, some of the references in my comment linked above might help. In particular, what Chomsky has to say about the elite "guardian class" in the US: https://truthout.org/articles/us-guardian-elite-rulers-date-...