4 ms·

>It's not evidence. In fairness, neither is yours. My anecdotes regarding the unemployed match GP poster, not yours. For the unemployed young I've known, it is

>It's not evidence. In fairness, neither is yours. My anecdotes regarding the unemployed match GP poster, not yours. For the unemployed young I've known, it is "party time." I do not claim that my anecdotal information is data on which to base policy decisions.

loup-vaillant 16y ago
Actually, they're both evidence. What count are their respective strength. Nevertheless, your data point suggest we could characterize the "partying unemployed". I'd guess these people are mostly, young, middle class, don't have any family to feed, and can count on their parents to back them up if they really mess up. (Some of these factors are of course correlated by causation links.)
- presidentender 16y ago
  Mine are entirely young, lower-class, and without family. They've all been students in the recent past, which corresponds to an inexpensive lifestyle... and they still get the same amount of unemployment as anyone else. One particularly striking example is a fellow who works summers fighting fires for the forest service, and is "unemployed" the rest of the year. It's not a safety net or insurance in his case, it's planned (I'm unsure as to whether he's able to do this repeatedly, or only for the one year).
roc 16y ago
> "In fairness, neither is yours. " That's what I said. At least,that's what I meant to say. Trying again: My post is not and was not meant to be 'evidence'. It's just a (somewhat exasperated) refusal to swallow Greenspun's characterization of 'unemployment==party time' without any support. > "For the unemployed young I've known, it is "party time."" And from the outside, many knowledge jobs can appear to be "party time" too. If I had a nickle for every time I heard someone characterize my job as "just sitting at a desk" or "surfing the internet all day", I could enjoy some party-time. The point being: if someone is going to cast aspersions from the outside, they should probably bring more than some selective reporting highlights and appeals to "what we all know".

loup-vaillant 16y ago

Actually, they're both evidence. What count are their respective strength. Nevertheless, your data point suggest we could characterize the "partying unemployed". I'd guess these people are mostly, young, middle class, don't have any family to feed, and can count on their parents to back them up if they really mess up. (Some of these factors are of course correlated by causation links.)

presidentender 16y ago
Mine are entirely young, lower-class, and without family. They've all been students in the recent past, which corresponds to an inexpensive lifestyle... and they still get the same amount of unemployment as anyone else. One particularly striking example is a fellow who works summers fighting fires for the forest service, and is "unemployed" the rest of the year. It's not a safety net or insurance in his case, it's planned (I'm unsure as to whether he's able to do this repeatedly, or only for the one year).

roc 16y ago

> "In fairness, neither is yours. " That's what I said. At least,that's what I meant to say. Trying again: My post is not and was not meant to be 'evidence'. It's just a (somewhat exasperated) refusal to swallow Greenspun's characterization of 'unemployment==party time' without any support. > "For the unemployed young I've known, it is "party time."" And from the outside, many knowledge jobs can appear to be "party time" too. If I had a nickle for every time I heard someone characterize my job as "just sitting at a desk" or "surfing the internet all day", I could enjoy some party-time. The point being: if someone is going to cast aspersions from the outside, they should probably bring more than some selective reporting highlights and appeals to "what we all know".