The world's richest 2000 billionaires could wipe out extreme poverty with one seventh of what they gained last year

[Medievalist]

@Auld_Lang_Syne

I’m not familiar with that particular scientific journal.

Well, if you move the goalposts, I get a penalty shot.

<several minutes of furious googling later> Argh, you have outfoxed me; despite much scientific publishing being a money-making scam and the field as a whole almost entirely disconnected from any assurance of validity, it’s difficult to find a cite for the logical necessity of poverty - because there’s more money to be made publishing papers arguing over whether poverty is absolute (and therefore can be “solved”) or relative (and therefore the human virtues of charity and generosity can never be engineered out of society). Thus, the words poor and poverty effectively have no agreed upon meaning in scientific journals. Curse your perfidious ingenuity!!

[HMSGoose]

@doctorow

One seventh of that gain, if apportioned to the world’s poorest, would eradicate extreme poverty.

[mid-atlantic accent] Ugh, but just imaaaagine what it would do to inflaaaation. *swoons*

[Auld_Lang_Syne]

@Medievalist

Well, if you move the goalposts

Saying that a quote from a religious text is not a convincing citation is not moving the goalposts, the fact that there are problems in scientific publishing does not contradict that science is the best source of reliable facts, and although they aren’t scientific citations, perhaps you could check out the links in this comment which appeared before yours:

The world's richest 2000 billionaires could wipe out extreme poverty with one seventh of what they gained last year

Pretty sure, but totally wrong. What Happens When You Just Give Money To Poor People? Give Poor People Cash. There’s a simple way to reform welfare: Send money to those who need it, without conditions. Giving Money Directly to the Poor Name checked in a couple of those articles is the very successful GiveDirectly.

[Medievalist]

@Auld_Lang_Syne

a quote from a religious text is not a convincing citation

For the majority of humans, for the majority of history, I’m afraid that it is. The most convincing of all cites.

@Auld_Lang_Syne

perhaps you could check out the links in this comment which appeared before yours:

Are you under the mistaken impression that I am arguing against giving money to the poor? I must have expressed myself pretty poorly.

[anon61221983]

@Medievalist

For the majority of humans, for the majority of history, I’m afraid that it is. The most convincing of all cites.

It’s still not a citation in a scientific journal. Moreover, there is no need for religion and science to be mutually exclusive.

[Medievalist]

Sure, agreed, but this requirement for a scientific journal was nowhere in the original request for a cite which I replied to. I went for the most popular shibboleth first.

And if we really want to, we can find peer-reviewed scholarly papers arguing that poverty is relative, and therefore cannot be “solved” because physics, psychology and physiology all prevent human beings from being equally supplied in perfect unanimity. Someone will always be the prettiest. I read an interesting discussion touching on the strengths and weaknesses of such arguments in the Oxford Economic Papers, New Series, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Jul., 1983), pp. 153-169 titled Poor, Relatively Speaking by Amartya Sen, but I don’t think the matter is really settled, scientifically.