I not only disagree, I genuinely believe this doesn't not belong here. I have downvoted and flagged because I believe that kind of comment to be inappropriate on HN.
Not all poor people are poor because they are somehow incapable, undeserving, or somehow unfit to live. Sometimes people are caught in circumstances beyond their control, and they are unable to get out of it. Not to understand that shows a breathtaking arrogance.
Who are you, who are we, to decide who has the right to live? Who are you, who are we to decide who should have rights and who should be deprived of them?
If my business collapsed there's every chance I'd find myself behind on the mortgage, and if I then was ill for a month or two there'd be the very real risk of being homeless.
Who knows how I would've turned out had I been in the situation these people endure?
I condemn the violence unreservedly and unhesitatingly, but that doesn't mean I don't have sympathy with the situations of people who are caught in the poverty trap.
Actually, as a (just as absurd) heuristic I think the world would be much better off if we killed, say, the 1% richest people every year. We'd lose some people up there with genuine net contribution to mankind, but for the most part we'd get rid of thieves and thugs. The problem with mankind is not lack of good and brilliant folks, but excess of white collar thieves and thugs.
Not that I would propose this seriously. Just seems to me less absurd than what you suggested, which is not saying much at all.
I'm deeply in debt and being sued by my creditors. I am deeply in debt because I and my oldest son have a genetic disorder and I figured out how to get us well when the entire world says it cannot be done. Since the entire world frames the problem the way it does, there would be financial support for keeping me and my son ill and lifelong legal drug addicts. There is no financial support for things that actually worked to get us healthy against long odds. It all came out of my pocket. In order to live at all, much less have any hope of getting well, I had to get divorced. As a divorced single mom with a life threatening medical condition, my pockets are not deep. This in spite of being extremely capable and having a long history of academic awards, education to prep me for a good paying job, etc. I ended up in a job paying half what I "should" be making because I was ill and heavily medicated and just didn't interview well and probably couldn't have held down those jobs anyway. "Underemployed" was better while fighting for my life.
I often wish there was some kind of assistance available for me. It feels incredibly unfair (not to mention insane) that charities, state aid, federal aid and so on would willingly spend literally hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on each of us (me and my son both) to keep us limping along in a zombified horrifying state of existence but I can't come up with a measly $50K--$100k (one time expense) to clean up my financial mess and move on and focus on writing software to teach what I have learned to others so that the roughly $3 billion per year that gets spent on medical care for a mere 30k individuals with this condition in the US could be shrunk to a more reasonable amount and their lives improved at the same time. There's a recession on. It would be enlightened self interest for The Haves to empower me to do this. But the odds are good I will keep limping along, just trying to pay my bills, while people like you pass judgement on me in the worst way possible.
If you had your way, I would be put to death and instead of the odds of me sharing my discovery with the world being poor, it would be non-existent.
I've seen you post this story a few times now; have you considered opening the detail spigot a whee bit more and posting an "Ask HN" if there's anybody here who can help you out a bit? (I would think at least naming the condition could help.) It's not all 19-year-old programmers optimizing clicks on kitten pictures around here.
And I mean the kind of help where someone works with you to share that treatment you've come up with and make some sort of living income off of that. It sounds like you're more after the former to me.
I've said it before: I have a form of cystic fibrosis, a condition with an average life expectancy in the mid- to late- thirties. I'm 46. There's a website listed in my profile where I talk some about what I have done: http://healthgazelle.com/
Would it be nice if donations came pouring in? Sure. But my preference would be to figure out how to support myself. I don't really expect to support myself from that website. I don't do much with it these days. Most people think I'm a teller of tall tales and couldn't have really gotten myself well/was never really that sick. My energy is mostly going elsewhere these days.
Edit: It wasn't intended as a "fundraiser". Just a counterargument to someone suggesting wholesale slaughter of "poor" people. I think I have redeeming value and am in fact currently a contributing member of society, in spite of (in some sense "because of") my very serious financial problems.
And now since that comment is dead, I have no idea what you were arguing against. I suppose from the response it's not worth worrying about, but it does sort of irritate me.
The OP basically suggested all poor people be put to death. I don't recall the exact wording, but the assumption/implication was that poor people are incapable/incompetent and have nothing to contribute to society.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but there aren’t that many people who will engage in an argument with someone who advocates murdering humans and wants to be taken seriously.
