The difference between ‘broke’ and ‘poor’

Post by chapium » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #3

xeromal wrote: post #2

Poverty especially sucks when you're all alone like it seems this person was. Where I grew up, most of the people were poor, but we had rich lives for the most part. Lots of family dinners and outings. The people with more would let you take the leftovers home. You can't really train this and we all definitely need a social safety net, but I do think our closed off society prevents us from helping each other too.

I think the recent decades turned us away from ~natural gathering/solidarity mindset. Consumerism drugs you thinking the best thing is to satisfy envy with things, and without a context of cultural sharing habits, many people end up alone struggling thinking people are selfish because today's mainstream is selfish and so it's hard to connect.

Post by crumpets » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 7:20 PM UTC

WoodenChair wrote: post #120

loblollyboy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly - I’m from upper middle class and while this meant I was lucky enough to go back home when unemployed, all my peers were just career oriented and it’s very lonely to be ‘a loser’ - I recently moved in w some old coworkers/friends in a diff city who are from a diff socioeconomic background. At first they just let me stay in the apt, now I make more than them (though not a lot). We share like family and look af…

I’m surprised you would even think your experience is comparable enough to the person in the original article to post in this thread. She was sick, had a disabled child, and no safety net. It sounds like you were single, healthy, with no dependents and an upper middle class family as a safety net. Perhaps there are other hardships you didn’t explain? How is your anecdote relevant to a discussion surrounding the issue…

Post by crumpets » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #94

toomuchtodo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all have to do our part to extend safety nets to those in our spheres of influence. I have done very well in life, mostly through what I attribute to luck and being at the right place at the right time. In return, I treat checking in and providing a helping hand (temporary housing, an extra line on my cellphone plan, or in some cases plain old cash) to extended family, friends, and others I encounter as a second j…

> Societal fabric isn’t going to be solved through anything other than effort on the part of individuals. Very much indeed. We largely get the world we collectively bargain for.

Post by crumpets » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #88

sametmax wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that simple. Social connections require work, they also are slow and unreliable. Before the information age, to get to know something, talking was the main way. But now with books, panels, displays, packaging, signs, internet, GPS, etc., we have access to a huge quantity of information without having to talk to each others. And we choose to do so because on average it's faster, more accurate, and avoid to deal wi…

I think you're pushing it too far, even my parent's generation is confused how culture changed from a lot of social interactions to barely nothing. They had radio/phone/tv (a lot lot less of course) but the social quality was still present. I agree with your conclusion though.

Post by crumpets » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 7:28 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #55

hopler wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are referring to having children, which is only one example of having family.

We typically refer to the rest as an extended family, but I guess you could call my concern as one for having an immediate family. Of course, different cultures have different ideas about all of this (I’m specifically biased by growing up in an American nuclear family unit far away from extended family connections with no help during financial difficulties).