However, we have reached an age wherein the unfit and weak are almost forced to survive, out of compassion, brotherly love and the like. This not only places severe resource crunch, it discourages development by the able. Progress is governed not by the fastest but by the frailest legs. Society dictates that even the most unfit be allowed to survive, even against will. I disagree. Let me elaborate.
I was discussing with Rawat how ridiculous certain laws are. Did you know that it's kinda illegal to use nmap on a system on the internet? Not because you'd do any harm. But because it's "possible" to. Compassionate desire to protect the vulnerable renders armless the able. Deeds are governed not by your ability to hack, but by the vulnerability of the weakest target. I'll never understand the logic here (or the lack of it). A similar discussion on slashdot today discusses why we need most of the security industry anyway.
Turning our eyes at society, we find innumerable instances of laws that protect the incapable -- permanent reservations being an exponent to the case. Mind you, all these efforts have the utmost brotherhood, selfless compassion and the purest love in mind. Millions are spent to coax the downtrodden to rise above their levels and lead a better life. They refuse. It's not a coincidence that 60 years of reservation didn't bear fruit -- it can't. Ask a beggar to give up and work for you. You'll see why he continues to beg.
Give me a fish and I'll eat for one dayUnfortunately, all compassionate public-welfare laws are prime examples of the first kind. It isn't myopia. It's blindness. It doesn't taken an Einstein to realize that there aren't infinite fishes. It won't be long before fisherman will be forced to part with his hard-earned fishes because his pitiful brother doesn't bother to fish for himself and would almost certainly die otherwise. Alms has become righteous, ability depraved.
Teach me how to fish and I'll eat for the rest of my life
It's all about balancing equations. Unless the LHS equates to RHS, there's no way any ground can be gained. The rich will remain rich and the poor will remain poor. I believe that if you work honestly, there's no way one can remain poor in the first place. It's not difficult to make both ends meet and make enough for three meals a day. Poverty cannot be pitiful, it's criminal. In the least, it cannot be virtuous.
Have you no sense to realize that you need to remain indoors if you are so vulnerable? You cannot blame the wind for blowing off your candle, can you? The earth doesn't owe you a living. It came here first.
7 comments:
I don't buy this idea of "rejecting" the poor or the underprivileged who just dont think about their betterment. I mean, what are you going to do with these people ? Send them off to some faraway land or totally take away their right to live. I do not support reservations. I do not support "unemployed vetan", or whatever the Government calls the money that they give to the unemployed for being unemployed. All I am saying is, bring the water to the horse rather than forcing him to come to the well.
"It's not difficult to make both ends meet and make enough for three meals a day."
Easy for you to say! What some people accrue over a year, you earn in 20 days!
Somehow I find your post very Ayn Randish :) and agree with most of it, but for the title.
You are fit not because of you are really fit but its because you are very very lucky.
Lucky enough to not die as an infant(35% IMR), lucky enough to be educated, lucky enough to get square meals everyday, lucky enough to have a unabused childhood that you had.
So when you say someone is unfit, its not only because of him, but because of many factors. If you leave it to Darwins theory then it would be like killing the diseased rather curing him.
"The National sample survey organisation (NSSO) estimated that 22.15% of the population was living below the poverty line in 2004–2005"
this means around 23 crore people of the country earn < Rs. 500 a month which means < Rs. 16 per day.
When the majority of the population isn't educated the politicians are as you said "giving them the fish to eat for the day, rather teach them how to fish"
A very interesting post.
nice one Nirnimesh
https://www.bihar.ws
sweet !!
I am seeing this quite late but I can't help but leave a comment.
When we talk of the "unable" folks, we must bear in mind what made them that way? They are rendered incapable, under-educated and so on, NOT necessarily because of their lack of hard work. It's predominantly because of the lack of opportunities.
So, make it a fair context, give everyone the same amount of resources to begin with and then, talk of crushing the "unfit". You can not have a game with different laws for different teams and then say "the winner takes all". That win is not justified. Only when every participant has the same starting point, can a race's results be of any significance.
On the contrary, I urge us to aggressively seek justice for ALL. Doesn't it annoy you that we have left so much to luck [where we are born, whether one fine day we are diagnosed with a terminal disease or not, whether all our belongings are taken away with the tides of tsunami or not]? Let happiness/peace of every person be a function of his/her merit, not a game of chance. Let's help provide/demand equal opportunities and fair policies for ALL.
PS: Tomorrow, If I meet with an accident (with no fault of mine) and damage my brain severely, I will obviously be dependent on someone else for my survival. So, till today I was "fit" to live and in one day, I will become "unfit" to survive! No ways! We have to define one's "fit"ness based on one's efforts and NOT on events outside of his/her control (like where (s)he was born). In other words, your fitness is a measure of what you did with the resources you had. If you never had adequate resources, there is no way you are unfit!
Unfit does not mean one cannot survive ... rather if u see it the other way round you will have to twist or modify the meaning of survival than the one given by darwin...!!
Darwin's theory held good in the context of mear existance and producing offsprings ... the meaning of survival has changed ...
as the living conditions have changed... technology has changed.. man has changed...
!!
for eg. people might say the fat or obese people may not survive as long as the fit ones but if you put both, the phisically fit and the obese person in an area where there is no food or there is a crisis for food .. the person who is fit will die of starvation and the fat or the obese might survive because of the fat present in his body...
so here darwin's theory losses its existance or you might say that darwin is dead so does his theory: survival of the fittest..!!
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