The Usual Suspirations

Sarcophagus of Prince Thutmose’s Cat Ta-Miu

The body of this sarcophagus of a cat is completely decorated with scenes, while the lid is inscribed with hieroglyphics. The front of the sarcophagus depicts a large cat standing in front of a table heaped with different kinds of offerings including bread, beer, beheaded geese, and the foreleg of an ox. Behind the cat stands the cat goddess Bastet, completely wrapped.

but i am going to post them because we’re going to all sit down and talk about this for a second. 

i cannot believe. this is something we have to say. but. 

yeah. owning slaves is wrong and always has been wrong. slave owners were bad people because they did a bad thing. 

putting the word “roman” in front of this doesn’t suddenly make it not fucking despicable. i’m so glad this person went for literally the most extreme example so i don’t have to. i’d say i can just leave this here and let it speak for itself, but clearly not. 

slaves have never been happy being slaves. it doesn’t really matter if they’re well treated because people aren’t fucking dogs so you don’t get brownie points for slipping them some dignity under the table when your mom’s not looking. 

not judging past people by current morality standards means shit like: marriages between two “children” (13-16) that occurred in some societies; an emperor for having 20 wives; cocaine use back in the day; different family hierarchies  ect. 

not judging differences between a culture/lifestyle not your own mean shit like: muslim people dressing conservatively; people eating food you find gross; people taking grave insult to what you’d consider minor failings of formality; ect. 

in a different post someone said that something can’t be considered abuse unless it’s socially unacceptable. which was the worst take i’d ever heard up until this one. 

sticking with the fucked up example above, beating slaves was socially acceptable. it was still abuse. 

social acceptability is not a moral pass. 

while it’s important not to confuse personal morals as being upright and unimpeachable (as a bisexual woman, i’m sure glad people’s moral opinions on my behavior don’t actually have any legal backing these days) there are behaviors that are considered amoral regardless of their social acceptability. 

involuntary human sacrifices, while it was common in many places, is morally unacceptable. voluntary, while by my personal moral standards is still very fucked up, has some room for debate. 

beating your wife is morally wrong. beating anyone you have power over for the purpose of establishing and reinforcing that power is wrong. corporeal punishment has a place in many societies and many points of history and has to be examined in both context of motivation and culture. 

just because you can rape someone and not get in trouble for it doesn’t mean you should. just because your place in society means you can kill people without consequence doesn’t mean you should. just because brutal practices in various societies and various time periods was considered normal and acceptable doesn’t mean they are beyond moral reproach. 

a reason behind a behavior is not an excuse behind a behavior. 

people are not one dimensional. slave owners may have been very kind to old ladies and children. your shitty trump supporting uncle might do a lot of pro bono work. the idea that most people aren’t all bad means they can’t be bad at all is uh. to put it nicely. really fucking stupid. 

Ancient Egypt - Tomb of Menna 

This is because they still want nice things and will work for those but the part of their energy that was devoted to worrying about if they have enough money to pay the rent and bills this month is now freed up to do other things.

Policy Brief: Impacts of Unconditional Cash Transfers by Johannes Haushofery and Jeremy Shapiroz - A look at the new trend of charities just giving people in need money and letting them get on with it. (Case study is a charity called GiveDirectly)

Cash Transfers and Temptation Goods. A review of Global Evidence by the World Bank Policy Research Working Group - This study shows that poor people who are just given money do not spend any more than they usually would on luxury goods such as alcohol and tobacco and in some cases the spending on these items actually decreases.

“Cash Transfers for Children. Investing into the Future” An Editorial article in The Lancet - This is the study that out and out says giving people money makes them less lazy and less dependant on the state. Direct quote:

“Emerging data from cash transfers, conditional or unconditional, largely dispel the counter arguments that these programs prevent adults from seeking work or create a dependency culture which perpetuates intergenerational poverty.”

The Town With No Poverty by Evelyn Forget - A look at the case study of Dauphin Manitoba that introduced “mincome” to the poorest citizens to bring everyone above the poverty line.

Why Not Guarantee Everyone a Job? Why Negative Income Tax Experiments of the 1970s Were Successful by Allan Sheahen (warning this link is a download link, not a webpage) - Study of a similar “mincome” experiment in Denver that found that when people did stop working as many hours as they had done before the money it was because they were furthering their education or working hours better suited to raising their children. One woman who had dropped out of High School to get a job in order to provide for her children went back into education and ended up with a psychology degree and a job as a researcher.

“Daniel Moynihan and President-Elect Nixon: How Charity Didn’t Begin at Home” by Peter Passell and Leonard Ross for The New York Times - This is a look at how President Richard Nixon (Yes, that Richard Nixon) wanted to introduce basic income to the USA and was defeated by ignorant congressmen and senators that trusted their gut over the clear evidence. 

The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend: An Experiment in Wealth Distribution by Scott Goldsmith - This is a look at Alaska’s policy of using the State oil revenue to give every single citizen $1000 a year.

Relationships Between poverty and Psychopathology - A study that outlines how growing up poor exposes children to a myriad of psychological problems and mental illnesses.

Assessing the Economic and Non-Economic Impacts of Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, North Carolina - The Harrah Cherokee Casino is widely studied and a resounding success as a case study for Basic Income.

An Estimate of the cost of child poverty in 2013 by Donald Hirsch - This is a British study that estimates child poverty costs £29 billion (£44 Billion-ish). Basically child poverty is massively expensive for governments and Basic Income could essentially pay for itself by removing these expenses.

When Pundits Blamed White People for a Culture of Poverty by Matt Bruenig - Article that discusses how the idea that poor people are lazy and deserve to suffer is racist, classist and morally dangerous.

Rediscovering Poverty: How We Cured ‘The Culture of Poverty’ Not Poverty Itself by Barbara Ehrenreich - An article on how trying to improve the morals of the poor so they can work harder and get themselves out of poverty is a ridiculous waste of time and money and quite frankly an insult to the people we force into these programs. My favourite waste of money that Ehrenreich points out is the $250 million dollars that President Clinton set aside for ‘Chastity Training’ for impoverished single mothers, the US government in the 90s simply assuming that poor women were too stupid to understand where babies came from and that’s why they were poor, rather than, you know, having no money, no support structures and no affordable child care and healthcare.

In the Shadow of Speenhamland: Social Policy and the Old Poor Law by Fred Block and Margaret Somers - Speenhamland was a town in the UK where a Universal Income was introduced at the end of the 18th Century. After a few years it was declared a terrible failure and proof that poor people are evil and lazy and should be punished for being poor not helped out of poverty. Speenhamland led to the creation of Workhouses and the abolition of the Poor Laws that had worked as a form of social welfare up to that point. For 150 years Speenhamland was used by politicians and academics all over the world as proof that poor people were almost pathologically incapable of being trusted with their own money. Except the whole thing was a lie. The man sent to study Speenhamland hated the project and was unable to correctly interpret the data or factor in cultural issues that were also affecting the town. Modern researchers almost unanimously agree that Speenhamland was a success but the damage that 150 years of ignorance has done is deep and long lasting.

All of these examples and hundreds more can be found in Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman which lays out the argument for this issue far better than I ever could and also discusses issues such as raising the minimum wage and drastically cutting working hours.