Originally posted by sinweiy:
you can suggest your ideas here.
ps: of the recent MRT sucide case, an insight struck me. was thinking, for a long long time have humanity stopped poverty? we used many methods, but even the richest counties have the problem with poverty.
and if there's NO poverty, what would happen to the world next? so somehow or rather poverty is also needed?
just like we need suffering before enlightenment. so suffering and enlightenment is non-dual. suffering and poverty would never end. and so will never ending saints who will vow to help them. and it's also wise to know that it's part of life or nature.

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I dont think poverty can be entirely eliminated in a meritocracy-based society... It can be minimized, but not eliminated.
I believe everything is a matter of degree... Bad things are of course, bad. But too much of a good thing can also be bad! Equality of opportunities is what I believe in to inspire individual effort and contribution. This contrasted markedly with the centrally planned economic model a.la. Communist systems, where there is equality of outcomes.
However, there must be something in the former system that inspires people to work hard... and that poverty unfortunately, is one of that "something" .... In other words, there must be 'losers' for there to be 'winners', and it is this that inspires people to strive. However, if we carry this attitude too far, elitism will result (reminded me of the most recent incident where a young lady of exalted background and education made an extremely arrogant and elitist post in her personal blog). Conversely, if we have too much "handouts" to totally remove poverty, individual contribution and effort will be stifled.
The key in my opinion, is to strike a balance between these 2 extremes, to find the "sweet spot" as they say.
This situation is of course, still unsatisfactory, as alluding to the First Noble Truth. So all the more we should heed Buddha's teaching to end this vicious cycle of unsatisfactory state of existence.