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> But if poor people want to read books and forget to return them, it doesn’t help to punish them. Sometimes we just have to accept that a certain percentage of

> But if poor people want to read books and forget to return them, it doesn’t help to punish them. Sometimes we just have to accept that a certain percentage of society can’t or won’t do socially responsible things all the time. As someone who isn't and didn't grow up poor, yet has yet to ever return a borrowed library book (which is why I stopped going to libraries decades ago), I find your conflation of "poor people" and "can't or won't do socially responsible things" to be quite telling -- about your attitudes with respect to poor people. I suggest you re-evaluate your ideas about intersection of socio-economic status and social responsibility, as it seems that you're wildly off-base[0] there. [0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-unexpected-link-between-social-status-and-generosity-2018-07-03 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-unexpected-link-betwee...

arrrg 5y ago
I think the problem is much rather that for anyone not poor late fees just don’t matter in any way financially. They do not cut into any basic needs, they don’t even matter in the grand scheme of things. The thing with being poor is that any additional expense will mean you have to make difficult trade-offs. Which is to say that even if someone who is not poor is much more likely to be late to return a book the late fees just don’t matter to that person, while they do matter for someone who is poor.
- nobody9999 5y ago
  >The thing with being poor is that any additional expense will mean you have to make difficult trade-offs. Which is to say that even if someone who is not poor is much more likely to be late to return a book the late fees just don’t matter to that person, while they do matter for someone who is poor Exactly. I'm not sure why you thought I felt otherwise. Rather, I took issue with GP's assertion that if you're poor, you aren't socially responsible. Which is both absurd and offensive.

arrrg 5y ago

I think the problem is much rather that for anyone not poor late fees just don’t matter in any way financially. They do not cut into any basic needs, they don’t even matter in the grand scheme of things. The thing with being poor is that any additional expense will mean you have to make difficult trade-offs. Which is to say that even if someone who is not poor is much more likely to be late to return a book the late fees just don’t matter to that person, while they do matter for someone who is poor.

nobody9999 5y ago
>The thing with being poor is that any additional expense will mean you have to make difficult trade-offs. Which is to say that even if someone who is not poor is much more likely to be late to return a book the late fees just don’t matter to that person, while they do matter for someone who is poor Exactly. I'm not sure why you thought I felt otherwise. Rather, I took issue with GP's assertion that if you're poor, you aren't socially responsible. Which is both absurd and offensive.