Loopy Logic 7: Paradox

In a week when we've been told that giving children food won't solve the problem of poverty, here are some counterintuitive tropes to wheel out when you don't want to give Oliver Twist more gruel.

The common theme from MPs who voted against Free School Meals outside term time is that there are better ways to target poverty support, i.e. there is a risk that food might be given to someone who isn’t actually starving. These are people who will spend hundreds of millions on systems to evaluate the poverty of recipients, rather than spend tens of millions on feeding people. (DS via Facebook)

Diversity Is Divisive (Spiked headline)

Acceptance is actually the key to things changing. (Via Twitter)

Happiness won’t make you happy. Getting what you want won’t make you happy. Acquiring the things that make people happy won’t make you happy. (You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. Albert Camus)

Making cycling helmets compulsory makes cycling less safe.

The real gap between the rich and the poor is not money (Headline)

Building more houses won’t solve the housing crisis.

Banning trolls won’t stop online abuse.

Passing laws won’t give women equal pay.

Giving beggars money won’t stop them being poor. (The same goes for a universal basic income.)

Cutting spending won’t reduce the deficit.

Feeding the hungry won’t make them less hungry.

Culling urban foxes won’t reduce their numbers.

Helping shy or autistic children won’t actually help them. They need to learn to do things on their own.

Complaining about or even mentioning the subject of (anti-Semitism, sexual harassment) exacerbates the problem. (The existence of Jewish stereotypes in the US is an advantage for Jews professionally and socially. @RedKahina)

Trophy hunting supports conservation.

Helping addicts won’t improve their lot.

Hunting preserves the British countryside.  (Andrea Leadsom promised to bring back fox hunting in order to improve animal welfare.)

Showing vulnerability shows your strength.

Drinking water when you’re thirsty will only make you more thirsty.

Sitting over a fire makes you colder.

Sugar-free diet drinks make you fatter.

Diets make you fat.

We can’t give practical help to the poor because they’d only – it used to be “spend it all on colour tellies”. (Probably now "flat-screen TVs". TVs are all flat-screen now.)

We can’t give poor people bathrooms because they’d only use them to store coal.

We can't teach shy people social skills because we want to go on believing that behaviour is spontaneous.

Don’t oppose them, it only encourages them.

Crop failure is not the cause of hunger.

Cutting benefits to bereaved children will help them recover sooner.

Banning guns won’t reduce gun crime. (Why banning AR-15s and other assault weapons won’t stop mass shootings, headline Washington Post, 2016)

Wearing a veil is empowering.

It's cruel to be kind.

AND... Lockdown won't reduce Covid cases.


PLUS... Counting votes is undemocratic. (Did someone really say this?)

Coalition Senators in Australia say that wind turbines are likely to cause greenhouse gas emissions to increase. (Headline)

Is there a term for when someone says "your complaining about racism/sexism is actually what's causing racism/sexism"? (@americanwombat)

More here, and links to the rest.