5 ms·

I would like to add a comment about your, "meh, maybe you should work harder," observation. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but we have a serious problem with a l

by walkon 17y ago

I would like to add a comment about your, "meh, maybe you should work harder," observation. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but we have a serious problem with a lack of frugality here. In regards to the lower working class your comment is referring to, all too often, they'll have no problem spending $2,000 for a awesome TV. Dropping $110 a month for 200 cable channels? Well, that's a necessity. Oh, gotta get a new cell phone every 10 months because it's the latest trend. Get a new (or newer) car for virtually no reason but to look cool? No problem. Eat out every day? You bet! Pay for a dental checkup? HELL NO! That is where I take issue. Many of these people have no problem buying the fun stuff, but when it comes to the "grown up" things, they balk, and simply don't put up with it. So, I ask, why should I pay for their "necessities," enabling them to go buy fun stuff, while I have to forgo fun stuff for myself to pay for their said "necessities"?

forensic 17y ago
The fact that you are posting on HackerNews means you are minimum ten times the value of the people you are criticizing. Those people are being brainwashed to do those things because people like you (ie. the strongest and smartest in society) are refusing to stand up and make things the way they should be. If you and your cohort* would start taking more responsibility for the lower classes they wouldn't behave so stupidly. Where is your brotherly desire to look out for those who are less capable? If the intelligentsia decided tomorrow that marketers are no longer allowed to force shit food and mindless status-driven consumerism on the lower classes, it WOULD stop. Lower-class behaviour is pretty straightforward. They do what they are told. *essentially, the elite - weather you measure eliteness by intelligence, money, birth, or simply willpower.
potatolicious 17y ago
It's fun to assume other people are irresponsible, that their ignorance and stupidity is the only (or primary) reason they suffer. In my experience that assumption is generally incorrect - and IMHO is really a very simplified, polarized view of the world, where people are dumb or smart, good or evil. This seems to be especially popular on the internet, maybe nerds are a little bit disconnected from reality, or maybe we just lack empathy. For what it's worth, I used to have the same opinion of poor people - and then I (accidentally) spent 4 months living on the wrong side of the tracks. Suffice it to say, I now refuse to subscribe to such arrogant notions about the poor. Perhaps you should do the same - spend Christmas with someone living in a bad neighbourhood, befriend some of them, treat them like nuanced human beings instead of caricatured archetypes. You will learn a lot - I know I did.
- teeja 17y ago
  Indeed. It's easy to criticize from a distance, easy to be disgusted by egregious fraud by a rare few when it's trumpeted left and right by the media, deliberately harming the interests of the great majority. I too have been on 'both sides of the track' at times, and noticed that people who've never known real misfortune are most likely to criticize situations beyond their experience. Many people live with situations that the fortunate can hardly imagine. What many people can't afford is preventive medicine. As a result, they arrive at the clinic or hospital with advanced disease that costs far more to treat. Anyone can understand this, and it makes perfect humane and fiduciary sense to make preventive visits as affordable as possible. That's the meaning of basic health care - and to deny it to anyone is illogical and mean-spirited.
- walkon 17y ago
  I grew up in a poor family. We had no TV, used clothes, little food, and very few toys. Don't tell me I don't know what it's like to have little. The difference between my family and most I see today is that we prioritized our purchases to be for what we needed, not wanted, so we could be self sustaining. Today it's the other way around because they know Uncle Sam will step in to take care of the rest.

by walkon 17y ago

forensic 17y ago

The fact that you are posting on HackerNews means you are minimum ten times the value of the people you are criticizing. Those people are being brainwashed to do those things because people like you (ie. the strongest and smartest in society) are refusing to stand up and make things the way they should be. If you and your cohort* would start taking more responsibility for the lower classes they wouldn't behave so stupidly. Where is your brotherly desire to look out for those who are less capable? If the intelligentsia decided tomorrow that marketers are no longer allowed to force shit food and mindless status-driven consumerism on the lower classes, it WOULD stop. Lower-class behaviour is pretty straightforward. They do what they are told. *essentially, the elite - weather you measure eliteness by intelligence, money, birth, or simply willpower.

potatolicious 17y ago

It's fun to assume other people are irresponsible, that their ignorance and stupidity is the only (or primary) reason they suffer. In my experience that assumption is generally incorrect - and IMHO is really a very simplified, polarized view of the world, where people are dumb or smart, good or evil. This seems to be especially popular on the internet, maybe nerds are a little bit disconnected from reality, or maybe we just lack empathy. For what it's worth, I used to have the same opinion of poor people - and then I (accidentally) spent 4 months living on the wrong side of the tracks. Suffice it to say, I now refuse to subscribe to such arrogant notions about the poor. Perhaps you should do the same - spend Christmas with someone living in a bad neighbourhood, befriend some of them, treat them like nuanced human beings instead of caricatured archetypes. You will learn a lot - I know I did.

teeja 17y ago
Indeed. It's easy to criticize from a distance, easy to be disgusted by egregious fraud by a rare few when it's trumpeted left and right by the media, deliberately harming the interests of the great majority. I too have been on 'both sides of the track' at times, and noticed that people who've never known real misfortune are most likely to criticize situations beyond their experience. Many people live with situations that the fortunate can hardly imagine. What many people can't afford is preventive medicine. As a result, they arrive at the clinic or hospital with advanced disease that costs far more to treat. Anyone can understand this, and it makes perfect humane and fiduciary sense to make preventive visits as affordable as possible. That's the meaning of basic health care - and to deny it to anyone is illogical and mean-spirited.
walkon 17y ago
I grew up in a poor family. We had no TV, used clothes, little food, and very few toys. Don't tell me I don't know what it's like to have little. The difference between my family and most I see today is that we prioritized our purchases to be for what we needed, not wanted, so we could be self sustaining. Today it's the other way around because they know Uncle Sam will step in to take care of the rest.