7 ms·

If I thought that you meant "to live off" was merely a drop in consumption to levels far higher than anyone lives off over here, I'd have written this in my ver

If I thought that you meant "to live off" was merely a drop in consumption to levels far higher than anyone lives off over here, I'd have written this in my very first response: It may be forcing salaries below the level necessary to support US middle class consumption levels, but there is a huge gap between that and "possible to live off". If you actually agreed with me but simply used a different definition that I did for the term "live off", why not just say "by 'live off' I actually meant 'maintain US middle class consumption levels'"?

ThomPete 13y ago
i was asuming you had at least basic understanding of what happens to people who make 15k a year in the US. I guess i was wrong and you dont.
- tptacek 13y ago
  That's an emotional appeal, not an argument.
  - ThomPete 13y ago
    Emotional? In what way? Did you read the discussion? As far as I can see I am the one getting down voted because of some peoples emotions.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      You wrote, "i was asuming you had at least basic understanding of what happens to people who make 15k a year in the US. I guess i was wrong and you dont." But Chris Stucchio obviously does know many things about what life is like for people in the US who make 15k/yr (he's from the US, for what it's worth). He's demonstrated that amply in this thread and elsewhere. For your comment to be a real argument, you'd need to accompany that shrill statement with a list of specific things about what it's like to live on 15k/yr in the US; in other words, you'd need to support your statement with evidence.
      - ThomPete 13y ago
        I think you should read it again. We talked about the term "to live of". It's pedantic as was claimed that with that i meant would die from. Especially if you know anything about what happens to people who make that little a year in terms of government subsidizing. Let me repeat. This discussion has NOTHING absolutely nothing to do with what other people do in other countries. We were talking about the US we where talking about the problem of wages being pushed into two extremes.
        tptacek 13y ago
        I agree that wage disparity in the US is a problem, but the reason you gave for it was false. Specifically, you said that the reason that wage disparity is a problem is that it is impossible for a family to "live on" the incomes from a Wal-Mart job, and therefore the government is required to subsidize them. You made an argument that was trivial for Chris Stucchio to dismiss: for every Wal-Mart employee making $14,000/yr, 6-8 Indian people are living with far less (PPP adjusted!), and raising families while doing it. Now you're stuck; you either have to come up with an argument that Indian people are different from Americans, or that Indian people are "not really living". Neither argument is fun to defend, as you've made very apparent. My suggestion is, make better arguments, or at least, don't complain so loudly when your bad arguments are routed by facts. Look: neither of us are going to solve income inequality by talking about it on HN. As you can see by the pale cast your comments seem to be taking on almost as soon as you write them, it's unlikely you're going to do much of anything to move the world forward by advocating for this issue today. But one thing we can do to make the world better is to get better at having discussions with people that disagree with us. Maybe start with that here on HN. I find 'yummyfajitas arguments painful to read. Most of the time, they create an annoying feeling of knowing he must be wrong, via a sort of deontological spidey-sense, but not knowing exactly how to rebut him. But that's a good thing, not a bad one: it means that to argue with him, you need to do better than playing to a crowd of people who already agree with you. And after all, what would be the point of doing that?
        ThomPete 13y ago
        Again. I can point to places where people have it much better than in the US what does that prove? You are basically saying that we can't discuss the US because there are other places where people are worse of. Otherwise it make no sense to point to other places where people are worse of. This is not about argument, this is about premise for the discussion. I am not buying yours or any other who use other countries as an argument for why it's not a problem that people on low wages have to be subsidized. If you don't think it's a problem they have to be then we disagree. It's as simple as that.

ThomPete 13y ago

i was asuming you had at least basic understanding of what happens to people who make 15k a year in the US. I guess i was wrong and you dont.

tptacek 13y ago
That's an emotional appeal, not an argument.
- ThomPete 13y ago
  Emotional? In what way? Did you read the discussion? As far as I can see I am the one getting down voted because of some peoples emotions.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    You wrote, "i was asuming you had at least basic understanding of what happens to people who make 15k a year in the US. I guess i was wrong and you dont." But Chris Stucchio obviously does know many things about what life is like for people in the US who make 15k/yr (he's from the US, for what it's worth). He's demonstrated that amply in this thread and elsewhere. For your comment to be a real argument, you'd need to accompany that shrill statement with a list of specific things about what it's like to live on 15k/yr in the US; in other words, you'd need to support your statement with evidence.
    - ThomPete 13y ago
      I think you should read it again. We talked about the term "to live of". It's pedantic as was claimed that with that i meant would die from. Especially if you know anything about what happens to people who make that little a year in terms of government subsidizing. Let me repeat. This discussion has NOTHING absolutely nothing to do with what other people do in other countries. We were talking about the US we where talking about the problem of wages being pushed into two extremes.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        I agree that wage disparity in the US is a problem, but the reason you gave for it was false. Specifically, you said that the reason that wage disparity is a problem is that it is impossible for a family to "live on" the incomes from a Wal-Mart job, and therefore the government is required to subsidize them. You made an argument that was trivial for Chris Stucchio to dismiss: for every Wal-Mart employee making $14,000/yr, 6-8 Indian people are living with far less (PPP adjusted!), and raising families while doing it. Now you're stuck; you either have to come up with an argument that Indian people are different from Americans, or that Indian people are "not really living". Neither argument is fun to defend, as you've made very apparent. My suggestion is, make better arguments, or at least, don't complain so loudly when your bad arguments are routed by facts. Look: neither of us are going to solve income inequality by talking about it on HN. As you can see by the pale cast your comments seem to be taking on almost as soon as you write them, it's unlikely you're going to do much of anything to move the world forward by advocating for this issue today. But one thing we can do to make the world better is to get better at having discussions with people that disagree with us. Maybe start with that here on HN. I find 'yummyfajitas arguments painful to read. Most of the time, they create an annoying feeling of knowing he must be wrong, via a sort of deontological spidey-sense, but not knowing exactly how to rebut him. But that's a good thing, not a bad one: it means that to argue with him, you need to do better than playing to a crowd of people who already agree with you. And after all, what would be the point of doing that?
        ThomPete 13y ago
        Again. I can point to places where people have it much better than in the US what does that prove? You are basically saying that we can't discuss the US because there are other places where people are worse of. Otherwise it make no sense to point to other places where people are worse of. This is not about argument, this is about premise for the discussion. I am not buying yours or any other who use other countries as an argument for why it's not a problem that people on low wages have to be subsidized. If you don't think it's a problem they have to be then we disagree. It's as simple as that.