Title: Give a Man a Fish

Original CoS Document (slug): [[https://conventionofstates.com/give-a-man-a-fish|give-a-man-a-fish]]

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Created: 2022-11-28 14:58:02

Updated: 2024-12-13 03:00:00

Published: 2022-11-27 03:00:00

Converted: 2025-04-14T21:21:11.992113693


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Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. If his government were to commit to giving him a fish every day he would soon become a dependent.\\
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In a while, he would trade some - maybe all - of his self-worth, his liberties and his dignity while he is collecting his daily - and seemingly - free fish. Without correct incentives, he would lose much of his motivation to succeed at this life. (Recognize a vicious cycle?)\\
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He could say that there is no equity.  He will be sure to never talk about equity in work or equity in skills or equity in what he produces. He will insist that he is not getting his share of any pie (fish) to which he is entitled. If he were to create any new pie (fish), it would be grudgingly and minimally.\\
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He will probably complain about not being able to feed his family on ‘his’ one-fish-per-day. He will likely insist that he is being treated unfairly. He will say that his home or his life is not as good as that of others – and he will get this right. He will further insist that he should have at least as many fish as the amounts that others bring home after catching them – and he will get this wrong.\\
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Teach a man to fish and you will help him feed himself for a lifetime. He will retain his liberties and dignity. He will improve his fish-catching skills to the point of going beyond mere survival – he may even thrive. He will pass on those skills to his children – and they will learn how to produce beyond a survival level. He may even create a fishing business or a fish farm and enable more catchers-of-fish to succeed. His self-worth will grow as will his motivation to succeed in this life. He will gain and improve other skills and will pass them on to his children too. (Recognize a virtuous cycle?)\\
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But he will have to defend himself against those who would insist that they deserve to have as many fish as he has. And he will have to hear this very flawed quarter-argument that refuses to acknowledge his learning, his work-efforts, his energy and his time. If he does not think enough of his learning, his work-efforts, energy and time, he may feel guilty when he is not.\\
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He could give in to this quarter-argument. He might either become tired of defending himself from ignorance at best – or evil accusations at worst. Both of these cause incentives to decrease. If he actually feels guilty when he is not – then he too will lose much motivation.\\
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Those who hand out seemingly free fish have taken them by force from the producers or have gone to great lengths to call the producers names very publicly, very harmfully – and very falsely. Any way that they get the fish from the producers will be invalid – they will not be earned. Then they will insist that they are more virtuous and compassionate than both the teachers of fishermen and the fishermen themselves. And they will be as wrong as they can be.  \\
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Would you like to see proper incentives and self-motivation return to our way of life?\\
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