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> Considering the poverty most minorities families faced then and still do now, it's sadly the case that they couldn't afford computers. My father bought me (a

by js8 11y ago

> Considering the poverty most minorities families faced then and still do now, it's sadly the case that they couldn't afford computers. My father bought me (and my brother) a 2nd hand computer in 1988 (ZX Spectrum+), in communist Czechoslovakia, for a price of more than two monthly salaries. Was the social situation in the U.S. really that much worse? I seriously doubt it. Now of course my father was an academic, and was very smart, so he obviously saw a value in it. But it seems to me that being poor is really a poor excuse here.

erroneousfunk 11y ago
There's a lot more to poverty than just "not having money." If my bank account suddenly dropped to zero, I lost all my material possessions, and I didn't have a job, I'm pretty confident that, within a few years, I could build things back up again and have a comfortable lifestyle (albeit, one with a very sad retirement account). This isn't the case for most people in poverty [edit: in poverty in the US Obviously, very different depending where they live] So if you're saying: "You were raised without any sort of education, never had a bank account, are trapped in a cycle of high-interest loans, have never had a good-paying job and don't have the skills to get one, and this is all you've ever seen and all your children have ever seen around them... but it's a really poor excuse for not buying a computer!" then fine. You can certainly have an opinion! Just keep in mind that it may not be wise to compare those in poverty to a smart, well-educated academic who sees an "obvious" value in computers for his children.
- js8 11y ago
  > Just keep in mind that it may not be wise to compare those in poverty to a smart, well-educated academic who sees an "obvious" value in computers for his children. That was my point - the problem here is cultural, not economic. I was specifically addressing the "cannot afford" wording in the parent's post.

by js8 11y ago

erroneousfunk 11y ago

There's a lot more to poverty than just "not having money." If my bank account suddenly dropped to zero, I lost all my material possessions, and I didn't have a job, I'm pretty confident that, within a few years, I could build things back up again and have a comfortable lifestyle (albeit, one with a very sad retirement account). This isn't the case for most people in poverty [edit: in poverty in the US Obviously, very different depending where they live] So if you're saying: "You were raised without any sort of education, never had a bank account, are trapped in a cycle of high-interest loans, have never had a good-paying job and don't have the skills to get one, and this is all you've ever seen and all your children have ever seen around them... but it's a really poor excuse for not buying a computer!" then fine. You can certainly have an opinion! Just keep in mind that it may not be wise to compare those in poverty to a smart, well-educated academic who sees an "obvious" value in computers for his children.

js8 11y ago
> Just keep in mind that it may not be wise to compare those in poverty to a smart, well-educated academic who sees an "obvious" value in computers for his children. That was my point - the problem here is cultural, not economic. I was specifically addressing the "cannot afford" wording in the parent's post.