Words matter.

You aren’t writing an academic paper. Always use simple direct language.

  • Help the poor
  • Healthcare for everyone
  • Good treatment at work.

Don’t use complex words.

  • Mamdani_Da_Savior@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    As someone that works with the general public.

    People are fucking dumb. Like not I’m not even kidding, there’s a skill gap to even get to a site like this…and not everyone has the ability to do it…I’m not even kidding. People are just stupid.

  • SuperCub@sh.itjust.works
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    34 minutes ago

    I get the critical comments here, but I think there’s a basic association of the word “welfare” with the CURRENT system of assistance which leaves too many people out. Democrats have made the current apparati too hard to qualify for with their means-testing. If they were sincere in working for the masses, they would push more universal programs, but at least on the national level, they are bought out by the same corporations as the Republicans.

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    Just want to point out that this negative association is based on racist dog whistles like the, “welfare queen,” which were propagated by right-wingers to convince low-income whites to hate the programs designed to help them.

  • NoMadLadNZ@lemmy.nz
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    2 hours ago

    Yep. Never use a ten dollar word when a 50 cent one does the job better. The left wing needs to dump it’s highbrow (and cringe celebrity endorsements) and use the language of the common people in simple terms that cannot be demonised (or would sound insane to try).

    Also, this is a prime example of how demonising words, especially buzzwords, is the strategy they use to make it lose all rationality with the public… the notion of being “woke” originally a good thing, welfare a good thing, etc…

    • Soggy@lemmy.world
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      49 minutes ago

      Doesn’t work, they take the cheap words too. “Fake news” was originally used for right-wing propaganda. The only solution is education so that future generations are more aware of and resistant to dog whistles and doublespeak.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Did the study define the kinds of assistance at all or was it simply the choice of terms?

    “Welfare” is defined and had a lot of baggage with it. Opinion about welfare can be wildly different individually and demographically.

    “Assistance” isn’t defined, people can place their own restrictions on what that hypothetical assistance is, who gets it based on their own prejudices, needs, and ideology.

    • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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      2 hours ago

      Nah, see, you’re falling into the trap. “Welfare” has baggage only because conservatives have attached baggage to it via their relentless propaganda campaigns. In practice, welfare is literally just assistance. In practice, the two words are synonymous. The fact that you perceive a difference in them is evidence that the conservative propaganda is working.

  • plyth@feddit.org
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    11 hours ago

    Assistance implies that it is temporary, that it is help to help themselves.

    Welfare implies that it is continuous.

    If you have to continually support a part of the population then you have a systemic problem. The correct solution would be to change the system. People who support the continuation of the current system either profit from it or don’t see an advantage in a change.

    • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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      2 hours ago

      If you have to continually support a part of the population then you have a systemic problem.

      To a point, maybe, but populations are always going to have disabled persons or people with chronic illnesses that require continual assistance to live a dignified life. Be careful not to write those people off with sweeping generalizations like this.

    • Pendorilan@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Do parapelegics require “temporary support”? There are some people who need continual support and they’re always going to exist in any society. Disabled people. And they aren’t a “systemic problem”.

    • renzev@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Assistance implies that it is temporary,

      Not it does not. Ever heard of “aim assist”? “Assisted living”? “assistive touch” (the iOS feature)? I don’t see how any of these are temporary.

      But yeah the correct solution is indeed to change the system. There will always be naysayers who argue that “no one system can suit everybody” so I guess we’ll need a system of systems.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Also, “assistance” is something that is given out of the kindness of your (or the government’s) heart and that the recipient should feel gratitude (and/or have to grovel) for. “Welfare” is seen as something the recipient is entitled to as a right. FWIW I support a UBI that is adequate for food and shelter and the necessities of life - as an entitlement for everybody.

      • renzev@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        Hey, a UBI supporter! Just curious, how can UBI be implemented in a way that doesn’t result in hyperinflation? If a society was to ration out food/shelter/necessities directly, I understand how that would work. But if it’s done through the intermediary of money, what would prevent the economy from entering an arms race where the producers raise prices to adapt to the new purchasing power of the population, and the government raises the UBI to keep up with the rising prices?

        • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          Just curious, how can UBI be implemented in a way that doesn’t result in hyperinflation?

          I don’t know - and we’re never going to find out, in the United States at least. I may support UBI but that doesn’t mean it’s not the biggest pipe dream in the history of pipe dreams.

        • plyth@feddit.org
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          3 hours ago

          A buyers market. Let competition drive down prices, or cooperation from people with UBI who don’t need the profits.

          That’s for basic goods. It’s good that other prices rise so that people are motivated to work.

    • Henson@feddit.dk
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      10 hours ago

      But it doesn’t have to be the same group in the population. Probably a portion is the same but the larger picture is all those you help up again so they can help support the community/country/state, and the price is helping the group that otherwise make the community unsafe so they in large can … act decently to others and live a life without violence

      • plyth@feddit.org
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        4 hours ago

        helping the group that otherwise make the community unsafe

        Why does such a group have to exist?

        Why the downvotes. I cannot think of a group that is inherently unsafe. Who do you have in mind that you consider it an insult?

  • hansolo@lemmy.today
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    12 hours ago

    One of the main reasons why USAID was the first part of the government targeted was because of things like this.

    If you frame their work as “Assistance to disasters” or other variations, plus the context of it being under 1% of the Federal budget, Americans were find with it. If you call it “giving taxpayer money to foreigners” then it’s wildly unpopular.

    Which is to say that the lesson is that most people are idiots and have no idea what’s going on in the world. Framing a narrative can get the same individual to simultaneously support and hate literally the same thing. It can get people to support policies and actions that directly harm them.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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      6 hours ago

      Which is to say that the lesson is that most people are idiots and have no idea what’s going on in the world.

      Not that the information channels that inform them blast high-octane corporate-friendly propaganda since childhood, leaving no attention for any other perspectives?

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      I wonder what the general opinion of USAID would have been if it had been described as “feeding poor people so their rulers can buy US weapons instead”.

  • Stern@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    IIRC “ACA” and “Obamacare” had similar divides. Propaganda is a helluva drug.

  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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    18 hours ago

    because welfare has been propagandized as used by “lazy and homeless, and poors, and blacks” its usually based on racism as well, the true welfare queens are Conservative voters.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    20 hours ago

    Ah, ~40% of Americans are complete fucking morons, that sounds about right.

    ~40% of Americans also read and write at an elementary school level or worse, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

    … I think we’ve found the mythical ‘independent, median voter’.

    • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
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      17 hours ago

      54% of Americans read at below a grade 6 level.

      Welfare is may litterally just mean ‘moocher’ to an American who has been drowned in propaganda their whole life.

      • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org
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        11 hours ago

        I read about that and i’m not sure what to make of it. My nephew is in second grade soon, and he can read pretty well. He doesn’t like it, because it’s still hard for him. But i’m sure in 2 or 3 years he can read well enough to become president of the united states and not be a nazi. So i’m not sure if the reading level is the problem.

    • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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      19 hours ago

      Ah, ~40% of Americans are complete fucking morons, that sounds about right.

      You’re leaving out the 29% who are against it no matter what you call it.

      • thevoidzero@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        Those are evil people, who do not want to help other people. But this 40% are the people who would do the correct thing but they are convinced it’s bad and vote against their interest

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        17 hours ago

        thevoidzero basically captured my response, but yeah.

        A total fucking moron is a person who is literally too stupid to understand anything going on around them at anything but the most basic level of abstraction.

        They have no ability for critical analysis, very little independent thought going on beyond what immediately and directly affects them, personally.

        That isn’t to say they can’t learn. Its just that they can’t really ‘think’.

        ‘The mark of an educated man is the ability to honestly entertain a thought they do not believe in.’

        They can’t do that, that would be very difficult snd confusing for them, cause them immense discomfort.

        Functionally too stupid to be responsible members of a modern democracy, easily tricked by propoganda… essentially amoral, because they cannot formulate nor adhere to any kind of consistent, intentional moral framework.

        The 29% below… well, they may or may not be relatively stupid, but they at least have a consistent belief, albeit an evil one… this shows they have an above elementary capability for abstraction and consistentcy.

        Which unfortunately also means that only about 30% of people are, at worst, well intentioned, but could also possibly be stupid, though not as stupid as our glorious 40% in the middle that is easily swayed by rhetoric, phrasing, emotional manipulation, “vibes”, etc.