Sorry @woodcutter I do not know you’re right. I know you’re wrong, and I wonder who kicked you around so much that you are complacent with a weak soul suffering in a life bereft of connection with others.
We all owe each other because poverty affects us all, we are all connected – not just in airy fairy metaphysical ways but in real ways like epidemiology and social order (good description @ragingloli). You benefit from helping the weakest and poorest among us whether you like it or not.
Straying? How did you arrive at your whole set of points get to revolving around people ‘waiting for something’ and ‘holding firm to a dead end job’? Who does that? You might be able to find a few but there are so many more people who are stuck where they are because there are no opportunities to get out. And everywhere they turn someone or some entity is taking from them. Your fantasy that all someone in a desperate situation has to do is try, or try harder, to get out of it is just hard-hearted delusion.
It’s not inherent to the weak that they suffer. A Society can collectively decide to change that.
Notice that our U.S. middle class is an invention, the result of intentional policies to create a large population of people who have more than enough to survive. ...An invention that worked well.
The weak make contributions to our society and culture and as a group we have the opportunity to make it so they can without suffering. There is no reason not to, it’s cost effective.
Stephen Hawking, for example, does world-class physics because people help him overcome his physical disabilities. From the sound of it you’d have kicked him down the stairs a long time ago.