When you say they had nothing they had nothing or did they have nothing and were also in 'debt'? In my families historical situation the big issue is you're poor because of debts. You can't move because you're stuck in a mortgage or farm loan. You can't go to college because you owe money. You can't better yourself without help from the outside essentially. Imagine owing 2k+ a month but only making 1800 for a few yea…
I can see both points for immigrants it's hard to understand because generally people who immigrate are more enterprising risk taking and willing to find creative ways to change their circumstances.
This makes sense generally. In our case, though, my family was facing ethnic persecution. We came to the United States as United Nations refugees. We were not seeking economic opportunities.
I saw a great comment on twitter: Thoughts and prayers: the air guitar of helping.
I forgot who it was, but there was a good joke by a comedian on this topic. He was talking about people throwing out that common "we are praying for you" line and he was like "Oh, so you're telling me you're going to sit on the couch and do nothing? Thanks."
And it sure is difficult for folks to save when they are working their butts off to pay crazy rent/mortgage and sky high medical/dental so they can stay healthy to work...plus college and grad school loans that got them the low paying job in the first place (although they went to school to have an actual profession which would have covered these expenses but doesn't come close anymore) all in a city where there are s…
No one forced anyone into taking loans or living in places with expensive rent. Just because someone—erm, our whole culture—lied to you and you took the bait, doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. That’s how freedom works. It requires individuals to know, to teach their kids not to take loans from creeps (aka basically all loans), not to believe nonsense mantras like the value of higher education. Just because Barack Oba…
Gosh. I didn't expect anyone here to be this unable to imagine/relate that many of our circumstances are not in our control. I know how hard it is to hear that innocent, strong, intelligent, accomplished people could be suffering, even after great accomplishment. It reminds us that we are all vulnerable to being crushed under the same weight ourselves. It's painful to watch if we have a shred of empathy in us, and I believe many do. One thing our culture is terrible at is teaching empathy, and that's because it doesn't offer any- not a shred. It's got this tough-guy cowboy tone that echoes, empty and false when you ask yourself how truly tough one has to be to kill and steal...to enslave... destroy natural resources. It would have been "tougher"to work together to embrace- to empathize -to aim to preserve irreplaceable resources of value, but we do create false narratives to cover for our most horrible mistakes and shames. Our society here in the US evolved from slavery making development possible and affordable - I assume you realize that. This same narrative forms a constantly evolving and deepening culture of abuse that permeates everything we do- how we educate, how we employ, how we treat our family and friends, neighbors and visitors.. and even fellow "hackers" who contribute to a conversation here. It is important we remember this. I'm responding to you so that someone reading your comment who is already feeling without hope knows that there isn't agreement on your perspective. Sometimes, hope in a place like this one is very important. When a people are abused and in turn become abusers themselves, as that is the natural tendency without conscious opposing effort, they eventually think that vulnerability means weakness and militarism means strength-a kind of tank-like war procession of knowing invincibility. This is the kind of thinking that totalitarianism happily thrives in-- and it surely is the opposite of freedom. (since you wanted to get into how freedom works) This kind of thing actually makes you vulnerable to control. Your attitudes are looking for or resonating from an unkind master- they accept abuse as the cost of doing business and that makes sense here in this culture,sadly. Don't you think it would be better to aim to be strong enough to listen, to seek understanding, to collaborate,to empathize,and to care about rather than this false "strong" enough to crush and dominate? That truly is a weapon that is easily turned against its own shooter in a second. When people are talked to in this way over and over, our most vulnerable-- are killed off in spirit by this , or they are killed off literally by the societal force of poverty or sadly, more literally by someone who was too vulnerable and could not bear another second of this kind of lack of empathy and smug cruelty in the face of their crying out to their community to be heard. Your people are in desperate need of help, even in the form of empathy on a forum for those who should be able to empathize with their plight. If that is you, man, I feel you and we will change things, and if it isn't,please give some thought to kindness perhaps especially because it clearly was not offered to you often enough.
I love how when this comes up, it's people either saying "Here was my experience when I was poor in the past." or "Here is what I think about economics or the wording of this article." Don't get me wrong, I know what website I'm on. But in all seriousness, is there room for currently poor people in this discussion?
I was homeless for nearly 6 years. I got off the street last September. I am still quite poor. In fact, my bank account currently has zero in it and I don't get paid again until the 1st. I fairly frequently give my opinions on HN about poverty, homelessness, housing, women's issues and the negative impact being female has on my earned income. I try to be judicious and not do it too often. Testifying from firsthand ex…
Your posts always break my heart because, as you know, we share similar problems and needs and both cling to the same fraying thread. I am going to make my "hail mary" AskHN post today or tomorrow (keep editing and editing) and hope you might find something to cling to as well if people respond.
> I am still quite poor. In fact, my bank account currently has zero in it and I don't get paid again until the 1st. Are you OK? Do you need some financial support? Can you afford to eat? I can offer to buy food and have it delivered to you, or a near by shop (or something) if need be.
This is the kind of comment I really hate seeing. It is almost always virtue signaling. People genuinely looking to help have zero problem finding my PayPal account or emailing me. The people who publicly offer assistance usually wind up really pissed off at me if I rudely try to take them up on it. It is gauche of me to take them seriously. They were just trying to look good in public for free. I am supposed to have…
I really try hard not to sound cynical or jaded as that puts people off even more, but it's so difficult as I have had similar experiences with "offers of help" of all sorts. Nobody ever actually follows through. Twice in the last 2 years people have dragged my hope for work out over many months or years with no intention of ever doing anything. It always follows the same script and has made me quite hopeless.
More importantly, people like us need sustainable situations, not a wad of cash that will be gone with next month's expenses and leave us right back where we were. We need to be helped get a base under our feet to grow from as the muddy pit we live in just keeps collapsing, we also need to "learn how to fish" as the saying goes and be reintegrated into the whole. Not have scraps of fish thrown at us, no matter how well meaning the thrower is.
> I find the entire thing annoying in the extreme because I have a Patreon account to help fund my blogging and I completely suck at promoting that. > I sincerely appreciate it anytime anyone actually kicks a few bucks my way when I am in crisis. But I would much prefer that people take me seriously, fund my Patreon and/or hire me for paid writing so that bitching about my shit life on the internet can stop being one…
You're angry already. Can you explain what's fueling your indignation?
The anger comes from, in personal experience, being taken out of society by things outside of your control, and whenever you ask for help being treated like a lazy beggar who has a lot of nerve even asking to survive. It comes from seeing the same "if I can help let me know" responses over and over that are really like "lets get lunch" statements and never result in actual help. Then when you get more depressed and upset that you can't get help people get defensive and dump their resentment or guilt on you more. It's a long spiral that is impossible to get out of often. Getting to the point you need help can happen to anyone...but most people need to pretend it can't and thus blame the victim and that victim's natural reactions to being crushed by life.
6 month emergency fund? Have you seen how many people in the US are living paycheque to paycheque? I know many people who make six figures who would struggle to meet that requirement. Having grown up as a military brat I know about poor and I know that this kind of self-serving look-down-your-nose "advice" is just rationalization for living well in a society that enables sociopathy
If you can't afford a 6 month e-fund, you can't afford kids. A 6 month e-fund is not even that hard; you have to re-arrange your spending over your lifetime and not even spend less in total over your life. I'm sorry you had to go through that as a kid. My beliefs on this subject are rooted in an empathy and caring for kids who could have had better childhoods if their parents had their shit together a little more.
Different people take different lessons out of being poor. My parents were poor too. They struggled (and sacrificed) on their own to care for me an my sibling.
Having kids when not entirely 100% secure in your future is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the parents make sure things go okay for the family. But that's hardly the case most of the time, and people over-extend way more than they can conceivably manage/sacrifice-to-handle. That's where family planning should help (by sharing knowledge), not just giving out free birth-control.
People need to be damn sure that they can provide for the kids, or that they will give 110% in order to make it so. But, welfare is sadly pretty-much at a point where it's just paying people en-masse to have children rather than helping people that got into bad situations. That's not moving society forward, or helping the needy; that's creating/breeding generation upon generation of a dependent under-class that will just vote to reinforce said government handouts.
Yeah, I totally get this. I have no idea why people want stuff. I have one computer, one phone, one guitar, and so on. If I could own just one set of clothing, I'd be happy with that. It isn't frugality for me, it's just that I can't stand clutter and really, what I consider. I think I missed whatever the definition of having things means.
At some point you own enough things that they own you. You can't do anything without taking all that stuff into consideration. This can make for a difficult situation if you and your partner don't agree. My ideal living situation is an empty house; my wife feels most comfortable surrounded by things.
"At some point you own enough things that they own you."
You're angry already. Can you explain what's fueling your indignation?
How about offering to help someone and then people acting like you are a bad person? How about that? I've got nothing for or against either poster, but so many assumptions were made about someone who may have been just trying to help. Why is that fair? Why try to help anyone if you're gonna get treated like that?
You have to realize it's not about YOU and not make it an ego thing where you get offended at a suffering person's reactions. People in need are ignored, blamed and screwed with constantly and it's a normal reaction to be depressed, angry and defensive about it. But instead of having that empathy, most people react with a "Well who do you think you are? Screw you then I was trying to HELP!" and make it all about themselves. It's like people who get angry at someone in an emergency who is panicking or in pain. Yelling at them as if they are being a jerk to make the rescuer/provider's life difficult. I saw it a lot in my previous work. If you want to help others effectively you cannot make it about you and have to approach things outside your ego and gain the trust. Most people can' be bothered.
I agree. Was in SF recently and the juxtaposition of extreme wealth and homelessness makes me extremely uncomfortable. I know we have homelessness in the UK but this is just a whole different scale in the US
What are you talking about? Have you never been to London? There are homeless literally everywhere, and London is one of the wealthiest cities in the world. The money in London is much, much older as well, so if anyone should have it "sorted" it should be London.
> Have you never been to London? There are homeless literally everywhere
I live in London currently. There are almost no homeless people. What are you talking about? It's one of the largest city I've been to where I've seen the least amount of poverty.
I'll also say that London is super safe, you'll almost never see crazy people in the streets or public transport. I regularly take the bus or the subway at late hours and I've never seen anyone dangerous or looking for trouble.