A society where just stating this is called trolling is such a sad society. I pity you and you brainwashed siblings.

They are not trolling. They are stating the simple, undeniable fact that there is more than enough to go around and if we had a more equitable distribution of resources, we could take care of everyone with disabilities 10x over with plenty to spare.

Have I said anything to the contrary?

You’re missing the point of the article and of the post. Why do you assume that someone who reads and takes breaks is unproductive? Should we get a second job instead? I spend 8 hours sleeping. Would you like me to work those hours as well? I spend some of my day cooking and cleaning and raising my son. Would you rather I keep working instead?

Maybe it’s time that we worked together to gain that time back for you instead of you fighting for us to lose our free time.

Switzerland got its wealth predominantly by shielding money stolen from around the entire world. I'm glad US ended that carnival of happiness to a large degree in 2009.

We have enough medication. People not being able to afford it has little to do with whether or not we have (or could easily make) an excess.

Insulin costs ~3 USD to make per vial. People not being able to afford ~30 USD insulin is not because we have too little medication. It's because there are leeches all over the healthcare system.

And if you genuinely cannot afford it, you should get it for free, as part of a proper healthcare system, which the US famously lacks.

The other commentor mentioned food and clothes to you. I'll add that I can get food for free locally (soup kitchen style, although I don't think they actually serve soup) if I really need it.

Around 10% of houses in the US are vacant, although I'm sure a fair amount are that for good reasons (shitty locations, old and worn to high hell). This to me sounds like a resource allocation problem and not a lack-of-resources problem.

Energy could be free close to free if we made the right choices. The sun's right there. Unfortunately, we've been stuck in a political rut for a long while, making long term projects like 'do something about global warming' and 'transition away from fossil fuels' uninteresting.

Many medicines are only expensive due to patents and making up for research costs. Actual production is usually cheap as hell.

I don't have all the answers. People smarter than me might have them. But I do know that we can do better.

By the fact medicine has an expiration date on the bottle. You can have so much of it you don't have the chance to use it all before it expires.

In the US, it can be measured by the overstocked food that gets discarded everyday, and by the houses that are vacant nine months a year.

The world produces so much excess food we pay farmers not to grow it and fast fashion brands burn unsold merchandise in the desert.

> A privilege, really? Who bestows that privilege?

You do

> I am certainly sympathetic to people who are genuinely disabled.

Agreed, and it can be uncomfortable to sort through what's genuine or not. One of my favorite scenes is in the big Lebowski where Walter confronts the other Lebowski claiming he's not a cripple and lifts him out of his wheelchair...Funny and sad all at once.

> That doesn’t mean we have to lie to ourselves that they are being productive by sitting around reading books.

Not asking for anyone to lie to themselves about what they feel is productive, rather giving another perspective to hopefully help people appreciate being able to work.

It's not my problem if the math doesn't work, or if my money doesn't pay for me. The contract as presented to me by the government is "You will pay into this system, it provides Social Security to the aged and disabled. If you do not pay into this system, you will be judged guilty of a criminal offense and sentenced accordingly." The specifics of who pays and for what are the government's problem, not mine. Whether or not the government is guilty of fraud or misrepresentation does not affect the terms. I fail to see why I should consider the government free of the obligations they themselves have mandated.

My point is that, unless you think that the purpose of human existence is to maximise insurance profitability and mining throughput, lifetime earnings potential is not a good proxy for someone’s value to society.

I think it is sad that many of the people that have the largest positive impact on society — teachers, care assistants and the like — are also some of worst paid.

Let’s assume that all human labor goes through the same transition as agriculture: within a single human lifetime, 98% of all the human work is replaced by highly efficient machines and a small minority of highly productive people. If only 2% of the population have the required skills/talents/ownership to remain productive, on what basis does the remaining 98% participate in the economy? The answer has always been: people will invent new ways to be economically productive, but if the agriculture ladder of labor generalizes across the economy - what is left for the average, unexceptional, run-of-the-mill man on the street?

Of course nobody sane wants something like this to happen. The problem isn't the people unable to make ends meets, it's the unwilling.