Yeah, the bonobo/chimp contrast shows it’s not an inevitability. We just optimized for the wrong equilibrium.
Us humans still has the genes that made us conquer and enslave the whole world, every single human culture that has ever existed enslave and murder animals, as we needed to do that to survive. You ain't gonna change those genes, so we just have to do the best we can with the genes we have and our genes are like Chimpanzees in that we want to murder and eat and exploit others, without that humans didn't get b12 and died out, so all our ancestors lived that way.
We should not underestimate the fact that where we excel is that we are better at passing off information to our offspring. This makes improvement over long periods possible as we can build off the backs of our ancestors.
Whenever "the poor" are debated, it seems that people always assume they're totally incapable of helping themselves.
You know that isn't true. Auctions are noisy and poorly conducted auctions are worse. This is about some combination of sadism and negligence.
Heaven forbid we admit that markets are not comprised of spherical chickens and that disconnects exist...
The debt in question was council tax, every household in the UK pays this at a monthly rate, something like £140 a month. But what most people don't know is that these monthly payments are technically a "gesture of goodwill" from the council, and if you are late for a payment they will really quickly take it to court and send bailiffs for the full yearly amount so you're looking at £1500 plus court fees plus bailiff fees for attending immediately. Easily £2000 from missing £150.
Next another little known fact - if you don't let the bailiffs in, they can't take anything. They can come back with the police if you let them in once. However they can levy on things that are outside, like a vehicle.
So that's what happened here, and once they levy on the vehicle you are not legally allowed to sell it if you sign the levy.
So the debtor in all likelihood ended up in this situation very quickly and could not sell the motorbike himself once the bailiff visited. As for the over valuation, I give you that but only in a very specific scenario - for the market where they sold it.
Now as for why they sold it so cheap, why would they care? They only care about their fees. It they can visit three times by only pretending to knock on the door and charge three times, they will. When it came to this motorbike, they got paid the fees for selling it, the auctioneer got their fee, and nobody involved had motivation to market it. We're not talking ebay or well marketed property auctions here.
In fact, the bailiff now gets to go back to tell them the debt isn't cleared and charge them for this visit as well.
> If it could easily fetch more money, it would have been bid higher than £50.
Have you ever been to one of these auctions? I haven't. If I want a used vehicle, I go to a trusted dealership. Few people attend auctions, hence demand is low, hence prices are low. When there's no incentive to sell something for what it's worth, the seller will put in less effort and sell it below market price.
> Then did the debtor not sell the motorbike to pay the debt?
They probably needed it. You try doing food deliveries without a vehicle. Now their job's gone.
> it seems that people always assume they're totally incapable of helping themselves.
Well obviously. Being poor is excruciating; nobody would choose to be poor. The ones who are capable of helping themselves do—in fact, they help themselves when they're broke, and they never become truly poor in the first place (per the article's definitions).
Multiple people in this story had a financial incentive to profit from the bike, yet no one did. The only evidence we have of the bike's value is OP's claim. Does it not seem more likely that OP is simply wrong about the bike's value?
…so clearly the bike was worth more to them than its cash value.
Again: They probably needed that bike for work. Losing their job will easily cost them more than $400.
> yet no one did.
The bailiff did, and the buyer did, and they were the only parties with agency in the situation. Doesn't surprise me.
This is assuming OP’s value of the bike is correct. The fact that the debtor did not sell the bike is a datapoint that OP is overvaluing the bike.
> The bailiff did, and the buyer did, and they were the only parties with agency in the situation.
The entire room full of auction participants also had agency and chose not to bid the bike higher than 50 quid. Yet another datapoint that OP overvalued the bike.
Also, this brings me back to my main point: I find it hilarious that you don’t consider the debtor as having agency. People love to discuss the poor as if they’re helpless animals.
Literally no one involved cared about getting the best price except the bottom-feeders attending the auction.
The point isn’t that you’re incapable of helping yourself, it is disproportionately harder to help yourself when you’re poor.
2. The parent seems from the UK and I am not sure how things work there. But many auctions are "closed off" in shady ways. In one of the countries I (and some friends) have contemplated going, gangs with knives were putting people off. The gov. employees involved knew about it and do nothing.
> Whenever "the poor" are debated, it seems that people always assume they're totally incapable of helping themselves.
3. Many of the times, they are not exactly bad or lazy people but they might not have made the optimal choices. They should, probably, be penalized for it; but not by completely wrecking their life and sodomizing them for a good many years. Also back to 2, and the parent you are replying to, many times the system is designed to over-screw them in the process.
It’s very far from its european cousins in this regard.
You just argued the bike wouldn’t have been sufficient to pay the debt. How would the owner have helped himself by selling it?
> [The bike] was sold at auction for £50. £35 bailiff fees for taking it there and £15 auctioneer fees, £0 off the debt.
If this claim is true, then I think most people will still find this conduct outrageous: How is it in the public interest for the baliff to take actions that harm both the debtor (by taking the personally valuable bike) and the public (by wasting from $15 to $50 of the public's money) to the benefit of only the baliff ($35) and auctioneer ($15)?
It’s in the public’s interest to have mechanisms to quickly process insolvency in a way that attempts to fairly value property. Auctions solve that. If debtors don’t like the outcome, then they should sell the good themselves before it comes to that. Having others sell your property for you is always going to incur an additional cost.
Because (it seems from OP story) that the court blatantly stole it from them, so they never had a chance.
That was all the "proof" he needed to be against helping the poor, because if he could do it, anyone could do it.
p.s. this person has also never paid taxes in his entire life because "government is a scam"
As a teenager I worked at a bailiffs in the office typing up the paperwork. One case that stuck was me was where the debtor owed somewhere around £400. The bailiff took a motorbike (or scooter) that could easily have covered the debt. It was sold at auction for £50. £35 bailiff fees for taking it there and £15 auctioneer fees, £0 off the debt. It was so unfair it should have been criminal.