I've had people rail against me because I look down on the system of income redistribution. I do support charitable giving and donate to worthy causes myself every month.

Anyway, my recent experiment has been concluded somewhat prematurely, but it ran long enough to confirm my hypothesis to my satisfaction.

Yes, that's right, the "appeal" thread was a stunt, I'm not hurting for money, I never accepted any money, nor would I have, though I did receive two genuine offers. And if I were in trouble financially, no one here would ever know lol. I apologized to Fortuna via PM immediately and let that member know it was a charade being he/she is new, and will now publically apologize to Mrigns for stringing him along. Both of them, while perceptive enough to suspect it might be a joke were nice enough to make an offer to help.

Back to my findings: People are more than happy with generosity by proxy (the government should give them money) but as I saw, people get damn agitated when you hold your hand out to them, especially if you're someone they don't particularly consider deserving.

Key point: When the government gives money away, they're giving your money away. They take your money at the point of a gun and give it to other people.

I've said that self-reliance, better decision making, etc are the keys to pulling most people out of poverty not handouts, and for this I'm labeled greedy and worse.

But you see people turn around and do the same thing themselves - they even bitterly insulted the two people who offered to help me when I asked.

Anyway, aside from taking advantage of Fortuna's and Mrigns's good nature, this whole thing was pretty fun and pretty interesting.

fo sho, playa. youz in line fo da nobel prize in scienz now, g.

ROFL, I knew that thread had to be a put-on. Suckers, lol.

nobel pr-zize for sheezy my neezies.

everyone knew that thread was a put-on.

except fortuna


and mrigns



and you, apparently...


try to keep up

Yeah, I'll try to stay more involved in the forum drama in the future. I forgot, are we supposed to dislike each other? You'll have to fill me in.

No, we're good friends. We go way back...

Don't you remember?


Dude...

LoL

Nothing particularly surprising there, if you don't mind my saying so.

Well i sure wasnt very perceptive about that.. I guess at least i waited to see .

I see nothing to support your hypothesis. The ridiculously small sample of people who hang out here is nothing to base a firm conclusion on.

I think many people would give the shirt off their back for a genuine cause.

Exactly. Almost. When generosity by proxy is in effect, people aren't nearly as choosy. "So what if the bum got where he is as a result of a lifetime of bad choices, the government should help him out." But when its up close and personal, and you're directly confronted, you become more discriminating and judgmental. No more benefit of the doubt.

So yeah, a lot of people would give the shirt of their back for a "genuine" case, but there is criteria for the beggar to meet to qualify as a genuine case.

Its a basic economic principle, people are much more inclined to spend their own money wisely than they are someone else's money - or what they perceive as someone else's money.

Hmm, I see your point now that it is more concisely explained. It was a little difficult to look past the nature of the stunt to be objective about what you were trying to prove. It seems manipulative and unnecessary in the long run. It would have been preferable just to discuss the hypothesis.

Thanks for that.

I think the stunt, and the responses I knew I'd get, drove the point home. Had I pitched my assertion to the intellectually dishonest masses here without the stunt, it would have been easy for you all to protest, but once someone has thrown a class A internet hissy fit and reported me to the moderators for spamming..., lets just say actions speak louder than words.

I'm not sure why you bother donating money to charity... your income comes from the federal teat, right? Kinda seems pointless to me. I don't understand why they make you guys pay taxes either. Why give someone money just to take it back? To screw with (what's left) of your mind?

Otherwise, I agree that actions speak louder than words. You should quit your useless government job and save the taxpayers some money. Hell, all you do is post on the internet all day. We've been buying your kids presents for years ... it's kinda brazen of you to propose double dipping into our charity.

Yet one more example of your distorted sense of reality, along with more proof how uninformed you are.

I thought you said you worked in the military... is this not true?

That isn't the point where you took a swan dive off the edge of reality.

Well, that was my main point... that you are sucking on the federal teat.

You consider labor with compensation "sucking on the federal teat?" That's what I mean by a distorted sense of reality. Honestly, its just plain stupidity. Or just a lame attempt to troll some sort of heated response. I'm not biting.

Well, sort of ... your income is essentially coming from the federal teat. As for the "labor" ... had you ever asked yourself if the government wasn't causing the same problem you were hired to fix? Working harder is not the same as working smarter. There are easier ways to suckle the same milk, as any infant learns.