3 ms·

The word "surely" is doing a lot of work for you. It sounds like you're arguing that the lived experience of an itinerant construction worker doesn't matter in

by throwway120385 2y ago

The word "surely" is doing a lot of work for you. It sounds like you're arguing that the lived experience of an itinerant construction worker doesn't matter in your quest to ensure everyone cooks all of their meals from healthy fruits and vegetables no matter how much grind it takes to accomplish. That's probably not the best way to address GP's concerns. I once had to wait out a lease and commute an hour and a half one way when I got a new job, and I stopped at convenience stores a lot more often than I would have liked. It's not pretty but sometimes you have to compromise between many competing priorities in your life, especially if you really need the job as a springboard to something better or as a big pay increase on its own. I empathize with other people currently in a similar situation, even if it's by choice, because unless you live off of a trust fund or are supremely fortunate you will often have to take work at the intersection of your skill set and your willingness to compromise other aspects of your life in order to get ahead.

lotsofpulp 2y ago
I’m not arguing that. komali2 wrote: > Not sure if you've been to the USA but it's not like many Americans have a choice. A small portion of Americans, such as itinerant construction workers or people with 90 minute one way commutes, might not have a choice, but to say “many Americans” don’t have the option to make simple lentil/rice/vegetable/etc meals is not correct in the sense that much of the restaurant business exists due to necessity rather than desire. The vast, vast majority of decisions to eat at restaurants are made out of convenience or preference, not time or money constraints.
- komali2 2y ago
  > with 90 minute one way commutes This is most every Houstonian I know, including previously me. Maybe that's unique to oil and gas where you live in Pasadena and then do jobs all over. Then again on a bad day Pasadena to the energy corridor could take an hour and a half... IDK I guess this just reminds me of the time I had a conversation with this startup guy that was totally convinced that single moms working two jobs could totally pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they had an hour of freetime at night. "She can teach herself to code, or pick up another marketable skill, and use that to get a higher paying job." I'm not sure if it's lack of empathy, or a lack of understanding of human energy as a resource, or maybe folks like you and that guy are just super awesome energetic people... oooor maybe it's a privileged position failing to understand the reality of burden and how much harder it is to make "the good decision" after 2 90 minute commutes and a day of degrading labor vs when one spends the day working from home at what ostensibly may be a hard job with long hours but still just isn't the same level of energy cost. BTW there are 3.54 million truckers in the USA, lack of rail infrastructure created an absurdly massive class of people that are constantly in transit and genuinely have no options other than fast food. Oh wait, sorry, they could have a fridge in their truck they fill with overnight oats they prepare at home between jobs. I think "choice" is a weirdly binary term in these kinds of conversations. We can all choose to run 5ks every day. You could choose to memorize every USA president and their home state. You could choose to start a garden - why don't you garden? It saves money, generates dopamine, and increases your resilience to market shifts in food costs. Why don't you choose to do pullups every day? Pullups are a very useful compound bodyweight exercise that improve strength and require literally no equipment other than a tree branch, and according to google, 99.9% of Americans live within a mile of a tree.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    You should re-read your comments. You made falsifiable claims, which were shown to be false. Has nothing to do with empathy or other feelings nonsense. The small proportion of Americans for whom it is unfeasible to cook were already addressed, specifically that they are a small proportion based on data regarding how far most people commute and how close they live to a proper grocery store. https://www.census.gov/topics/employment/commuting/guidance/acs-1yr.html https://www.census.gov/topics/employment/commuting/guidance/... > The mean one-way travel time in 2022 was 26.4 minutes, higher than 25.6 minutes in 2021. > The percentage of workers with a one-way travel time of 60 minutes or more in 2022 was 8.5 percent, higher than 7.7 percent in 2021.
    - komali2 2y ago
      > Has nothing to do with empathy or other feelings nonsense Nonsense? Are you Spock? The way you write makes me feel you're a participant of the LessWrong community or idealogically aligned, maybe you'll appreciate this article: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/5g5TkQTe9rmPS5vvM/p/SqF8cHjJv43mvJJzx https://www.lesswrong.com/s/5g5TkQTe9rmPS5vvM/p/SqF8cHjJv43m... > So is rationality orthogonal to feeling? No; our emotions arise from our models of reality. > Becoming more rational—arriving at better estimates of how-the-world-is—can diminish feelings or intensify them. Sometimes we run away from strong feelings by denying the facts, by flinching away from the view of the world that gave rise to the powerful emotion. If so, then as you study the skills of rationality and train yourself not to deny facts, your feelings will become stronger. 8.5% of the working population of Americans is a lot of people. Driving a long time isn't the only obstacle people might face. I don't disagree that there's some mechanism by which the vast majority of Americans can cook every meal, or plant gardens, or do pullups every day, I'm disagreeing that it's a reasonable expectation given the environment. We should work to improve the environment. I think you're trying to shoehorn a human situation into some pure thought experiment territory. When I say "don't have a choice" and you take me to mean "it's literally impossible," I feel like that's a bad faith interpretation. Would it be falsifiable for me to claim most Americans don't have the ability to do pullups every day? Yes of course. Negating it though is loaded because the topic isn't, "is there a mechanism by which Americans can do pullups every day," it's "is it reasonable to expect the majority of Americans to do pullups every day?" What do you think? Is it reasonable to expect the majority of Americans to maintain 12% bodyfat while raising their 2.5 children to rational, well-studied standards, while meditating daily, while being 10 minutes early to work every day and staying 10 minutes later than their boss to ensure maximized potential for career success, while also learning to code to improve their job prospects, while supplementing their income by starting a drop shipping company, while ensuring the future of their liberal democracy by participating in local politics, while ensuring the future of their planet by engaging in climate activism, while reading at least one book per month? Which of the things on the list aren't you doing, and why "can't" you do them?

lotsofpulp 2y ago

I’m not arguing that. komali2 wrote: > Not sure if you've been to the USA but it's not like many Americans have a choice. A small portion of Americans, such as itinerant construction workers or people with 90 minute one way commutes, might not have a choice, but to say “many Americans” don’t have the option to make simple lentil/rice/vegetable/etc meals is not correct in the sense that much of the restaurant business exists due to necessity rather than desire. The vast, vast majority of decisions to eat at restaurants are made out of convenience or preference, not time or money constraints.

komali2 2y ago
> with 90 minute one way commutes This is most every Houstonian I know, including previously me. Maybe that's unique to oil and gas where you live in Pasadena and then do jobs all over. Then again on a bad day Pasadena to the energy corridor could take an hour and a half... IDK I guess this just reminds me of the time I had a conversation with this startup guy that was totally convinced that single moms working two jobs could totally pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they had an hour of freetime at night. "She can teach herself to code, or pick up another marketable skill, and use that to get a higher paying job." I'm not sure if it's lack of empathy, or a lack of understanding of human energy as a resource, or maybe folks like you and that guy are just super awesome energetic people... oooor maybe it's a privileged position failing to understand the reality of burden and how much harder it is to make "the good decision" after 2 90 minute commutes and a day of degrading labor vs when one spends the day working from home at what ostensibly may be a hard job with long hours but still just isn't the same level of energy cost. BTW there are 3.54 million truckers in the USA, lack of rail infrastructure created an absurdly massive class of people that are constantly in transit and genuinely have no options other than fast food. Oh wait, sorry, they could have a fridge in their truck they fill with overnight oats they prepare at home between jobs. I think "choice" is a weirdly binary term in these kinds of conversations. We can all choose to run 5ks every day. You could choose to memorize every USA president and their home state. You could choose to start a garden - why don't you garden? It saves money, generates dopamine, and increases your resilience to market shifts in food costs. Why don't you choose to do pullups every day? Pullups are a very useful compound bodyweight exercise that improve strength and require literally no equipment other than a tree branch, and according to google, 99.9% of Americans live within a mile of a tree.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  You should re-read your comments. You made falsifiable claims, which were shown to be false. Has nothing to do with empathy or other feelings nonsense. The small proportion of Americans for whom it is unfeasible to cook were already addressed, specifically that they are a small proportion based on data regarding how far most people commute and how close they live to a proper grocery store. https://www.census.gov/topics/employment/commuting/guidance/acs-1yr.html https://www.census.gov/topics/employment/commuting/guidance/... > The mean one-way travel time in 2022 was 26.4 minutes, higher than 25.6 minutes in 2021. > The percentage of workers with a one-way travel time of 60 minutes or more in 2022 was 8.5 percent, higher than 7.7 percent in 2021.
  - komali2 2y ago
    > Has nothing to do with empathy or other feelings nonsense Nonsense? Are you Spock? The way you write makes me feel you're a participant of the LessWrong community or idealogically aligned, maybe you'll appreciate this article: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/5g5TkQTe9rmPS5vvM/p/SqF8cHjJv43mvJJzx https://www.lesswrong.com/s/5g5TkQTe9rmPS5vvM/p/SqF8cHjJv43m... > So is rationality orthogonal to feeling? No; our emotions arise from our models of reality. > Becoming more rational—arriving at better estimates of how-the-world-is—can diminish feelings or intensify them. Sometimes we run away from strong feelings by denying the facts, by flinching away from the view of the world that gave rise to the powerful emotion. If so, then as you study the skills of rationality and train yourself not to deny facts, your feelings will become stronger. 8.5% of the working population of Americans is a lot of people. Driving a long time isn't the only obstacle people might face. I don't disagree that there's some mechanism by which the vast majority of Americans can cook every meal, or plant gardens, or do pullups every day, I'm disagreeing that it's a reasonable expectation given the environment. We should work to improve the environment. I think you're trying to shoehorn a human situation into some pure thought experiment territory. When I say "don't have a choice" and you take me to mean "it's literally impossible," I feel like that's a bad faith interpretation. Would it be falsifiable for me to claim most Americans don't have the ability to do pullups every day? Yes of course. Negating it though is loaded because the topic isn't, "is there a mechanism by which Americans can do pullups every day," it's "is it reasonable to expect the majority of Americans to do pullups every day?" What do you think? Is it reasonable to expect the majority of Americans to maintain 12% bodyfat while raising their 2.5 children to rational, well-studied standards, while meditating daily, while being 10 minutes early to work every day and staying 10 minutes later than their boss to ensure maximized potential for career success, while also learning to code to improve their job prospects, while supplementing their income by starting a drop shipping company, while ensuring the future of their liberal democracy by participating in local politics, while ensuring the future of their planet by engaging in climate activism, while reading at least one book per month? Which of the things on the list aren't you doing, and why "can't" you do them?