311–320 of 344 posts
Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your friend is screwing up their life and you are enabling them by validating their bad choices, you're not being a good friend to them. Close friends are pretty much the only ones who are in a position of trust to be able to deliver harsh truths to someone in a way that actually gets through (unlike internet strangers, media, authorities and in many cases also family), so it's the duty of friends to actually do s…
Nobody's making the case for enabling bad choices - I just don't think being an asshole is the only alternative. I also don't know anyone in a similar situation who isn't acutely aware of the situation - they don't need their friends constantly giving them the most obvious advice in the world, they need support.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yet, as a foreigner, I (We, as a matter of fact, since all my friends and colleagues were either german, italian, spanish, chinese...) had no real social safety net to rely on. We couldn't go back to our family (500 miles away) with our tail between our legs in case we really fucked up. You didn't have kids though. That changes everything. I do agree from experience as well, a single healthy young person in good sp…
> I assume there wasn't an extended family that was near enough, kind enough, or able enough to take them in for a few years. Her parents were foster parents to 100s of children. They helped her during her pregnancy etc. She just has issues asking for and accepting help. https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/07/jack-monroe-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its fairly obvious that an anonymous stranger on the internet, or a politician proselytizing for their punative economic policies is _not_ that type of friend. But it seems some people derive a great deal of satisfaction out of imaginging themselves as knowing better how people should live their lives.
It may not be a much better approach than pandering and patronizing their feelings, but it's probably at least a little bit better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody's making the case for enabling bad choices - I just don't think being an asshole is the only alternative. I also don't know anyone in a similar situation who isn't acutely aware of the situation - they don't need their friends constantly giving them the most obvious advice in the world, they need support.
If you're going through a tough time and need compassion, don't mistake that for thinking everybody in every situation always needs compassion
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody's making the case for enabling bad choices - I just don't think being an asshole is the only alternative. I also don't know anyone in a similar situation who isn't acutely aware of the situation - they don't need their friends constantly giving them the most obvious advice in the world, they need support.
If you're going through a tough time and need compassion, don't mistake that for thinking everybody in every situation always needs compassion
I'm also not really sure why you're playing this card, since I referenced other people in my previous comment... but oh well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're going through a tough time and need compassion, don't mistake that for thinking everybody in every situation always needs compassion
Counterpoint: Literally nobody needs 'darkerside' from hackernews to tell them to "get a fucking job".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're going through a tough time and need compassion, don't mistake that for thinking everybody in every situation always needs compassion
I don't think I said that. Likewise, though, if you're too blind to notice your own bad behavior, don't mistake that for everyone else being too blind to notice their own behavior. I'm also not really sure why you're playing this card, since I referenced other people in my previous comment... but oh well.
Your friends may very well all fall into the category you describe. There exist nonzero scenarios where people don't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may not be a much better approach than pandering and patronizing their feelings, but it's probably at least a little bit better.
Unsolicited internet judgement and condescending advice is worse than nothing and significantly worse than compassion. Too many people on the internet are way too over confident in their assessment of others' situations, and I dare say that with your 'tough love' position on this, you may be one of them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jimmy didn't do any of those things. The claim was that Jimmy can't produce value, but he did. And even so, the work the people making the pencils for Jimmy would not exist without Jimmy. Jimmy, in yet another way, provides value. Jimmy figured out to put the wood with the graphite, not them. Who actually does it is irrelevant; or are you suggesting that if Jimmy kept his operation entirely mechanical, that'd be bett…
> the work the people making the pencils for Jimmy would not exist without Jimmy Apart from this example being overly reductive and not rooted in reality, the hypothetical Jimmy would eventually be replaced by someone else who would invent this pencil. There is no truth that needs a single person to be uncovered. There are infinitely many people able to invent the pencil given enough tries and time. This also makes t…
As I've seen it historically, here's the crux of your argument. "If not for this employer, some other person would have done what they did, so it's not even really their value."
The problem becomes the devaluation effect this has on ideation, which misaligns incentives away from innovation and progress. Since when do we presume someone would have done something, discounting the person who actually does? This wouldn't apply to the laborer who constructed the pencil, I observe. "Well, anyone could have constructed this pencil, so why value the production?" Nobody makes that argument.
Additionally, this devalues the organizational contribution of coordination between the lumberjack and the miner. Jimmy coordinates their raw materials into an environment where they can be combined in the first place. Even if he doesn't invent the pencil, he still creates value by building the environment for the job to exist. Absent someone in Jimmy's role, none of the pencil-construction jobs would exist.