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I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

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Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#751

Post by mtnGoat »

veunes wrote: post #471
mtnGoat wrote: post #343

As someone who experienced this first hand growing up. I consider how someone feels about free school lunch, a basic test of their humanity. If you think kids should go hungry or be embarrassed at school because of their parents finances… we can’t be friends, nor acquaintances. IMHO, you are subhuman at that point and not worth my time. My dad believed that because he paid taxes he shouldn’t have to pay the school to…

It's honestly heartbreaking - not just what you went through, but how normalized it was. That kind of survival mode shouldn't be part of any kid's school experience

It sticks with you for a while and creates interesting views on things throughout life.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#752

Post by frakkingcylons »

RandallBrown wrote: post #301
iandanforth wrote: post #232

On the off chance you're interested in school lunches I highly recommend watching videos of Japanese school lunches on YouTube. There's a bunch out there now and if you were raised in the American system it will probably blow your mind. The idea that lunches can be freshly made, on site, out of healthy ingredients and children are active participants in serving and cleaning up is just crazy. When I encountered it for…

Maybe this wasn't all over the US, but in the 90s I helped serve and clean up our elementary school lunches. There was a rotation through all of the older classrooms.

I also did this to get lunch for free in high school from 2008-2010. I don’t remember how many hours a week it was (it was definitely less than 10). The shifts were prep work in the morning, serving lunch, or doing dishes. Each shift was at most an hour. It was pretty fun since it was with my friends at school.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#753

Post by lurking_swe »

verisimi wrote: post #344
kerkeslager wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stuff like this seems like such a dividing line to me. Like, in theory when people believe things that are morally wrong, I want to reach out to them with compassion and respect and try to gently persuade them to my side because we're all, in theory, on the same side. But if you don't want kids to be fed, I really am not sure we're actually on the same side any more and I really am not sure what to do with that.

I'll play devil's advocate, and you tell me the immorality of the position. Say you have no children. Is it an acceptable position to hold that 'those people who have children should also be the ones to look after them'? Shouldn't you have considered these sorts of expenses and being able to meet them, rather than expecting to receive handouts?

many problems with your argument. I will enumerate just a few off the top of my head.

- if a child was born with poor planning from the parents, it’s too late and unhelpful to say “i told you so”. Feeding a disadvantaged child raises their chances of doing well in school and reduces their chance of being a much larger burden on your tax dollars down the line. Are you saying we should save $5 on this child now so we can spend $100 in the future (subsidizing their social security payments, maybe jail time, maybe homeless, etc)? Sounds like a smart business move! (sarcasm) Feeding kids is good ROI.

- it’s possible to get pregnant even when being responsible. No protection is 100% except for abstinence your entire life.

- you can “plan” for these expenses all you want. Sometimes a spouse dies. Sometimes a person needs to spend money to support their aging parents, AFTER their child is born. Or a divorce ruins one’s finances. Or someone loses their good job due to layoffs. Life is not a simple path, not sure what gave you that illusion.

- congrats you don’t have children. Guess what? When you’re old and need a diaper change in a nursing home, who do you think will be wiping your ass? One of the nurses… one of those kids that is not yours. Who will be delivering food to the grocery store? That’s right, one of those other kids. Who will be your doctor? Right again! One of those other kids.

- it’s easy to be smug until you’re unlucky in life. What if tomorrow you’re hit by a drunk driver and you go bankrupt trying to pay for major medical bills. Suddenly it’s not so fun saying nobody deserves a handout. At the end of the day, this mindset is an empathy problem.

It seems like _most_ of my fellow americans have an empathy problem. Are you all dead inside? Anyway…it’s useful to invest in our society. Not everything is about me me me.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#754

Post by treis »

idrios wrote: post #686
pnutjam wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the wealthy should be required to use public schools.

The wealthy do use public schools. They pay huge amounts to live in upper class neighborhoods with wealthy peers, where a lot of tax money goes into the schooling system so the kids can take all sorts of extracurriculars and AP classes. It gets the same results as private school but the cost comes from living in that neighborhood rather than paying the school directly

This really isn't true anywhere in the US. The highest spending per pupil will be the city school district. The people who live there may be relatively poor but there's a lot more commercial real estate to tax.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#755

Post by umeshunni »

nothercastle wrote: post #748
yongjik wrote: post #284

South Korea started dabbling in free school lunches around 2001 - when a few schools started it. It gained momentum, and then it became a huge debate in 2011, when Seoul's mayor somehow decided he hated free lunches so much that he arranged a referendum, and said he would quit if people didn't agree with him on the matter. He did quit. Fast forward to 2025, and now free school lunches are nearly ubiquitous. Once peop…

In America even if we enacted this the kids would get meals that are terrible like 10$ chicken strips, hotdogs and fake pizza

Huh? We have free lunch in all schools in California and they serve everything from pizza to burritos to hamburgers.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#756

Post by umeshunni »

Suppafly wrote: post #663
yongjik wrote: post #284

South Korea started dabbling in free school lunches around 2001 - when a few schools started it. It gained momentum, and then it became a huge debate in 2011, when Seoul's mayor somehow decided he hated free lunches so much that he arranged a referendum, and said he would quit if people didn't agree with him on the matter. He did quit. Fast forward to 2025, and now free school lunches are nearly ubiquitous. Once peop…

>But you don't have to pay for a gratuitous system of bureaucracy This is what's frustrating about America. There is so much bureaucracy that exists only to pay for itself, and I suppose, provide a few jobs, but you're an unreasonable socialist if you point out that it'd be cheaper just to not keep track of who needs to pay and give food to everyone for free instead.

And yet when someone tries to cut down bureaucracy, it's called fascism and people start burning cars.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#757

Post by scotty79 »

verisimi wrote: post #416
hofrogs wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what humanity must aim for.

[flagged]

If you prefer ...

Somebody should individualistically autonomously amass enough tanks so that they can point them at individuals who think like you so they can make their autonomic individualistic decision that they'd rather feed children than be shot at by a tank.

We know that's how humanity does collective action nearly 100% of the time, but it doesn't apply some linguistic shortcuts fro the sake of moving the discussion along.

Morality is written by the guys who had the most tanks last time.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#758

Post by mtnGoat »

homebrewer wrote: post #550
amelius wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have deleted this comment because this discussion is going nowhere.

He's absolutely right. As someone whose society suffered very heavy losses from the Nazis, this is the first thing that came to my mind when I read the root comment. It's like posting swastikas online and then dismissing concerned replies because "it's a Buddhist sign, what are you on about?"

I am the OP that used that word. I was unaware of this connection, my apologies. I will consider this if using the word in the future.

I was aiming for the “not having basic human morals” usage of the word, nothing more.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#759

Post by indrora »

veunes wrote: post #480
iandanforth wrote: post #232

On the off chance you're interested in school lunches I highly recommend watching videos of Japanese school lunches on YouTube. There's a bunch out there now and if you were raised in the American system it will probably blow your mind. The idea that lunches can be freshly made, on site, out of healthy ingredients and children are active participants in serving and cleaning up is just crazy. When I encountered it for…

I remember stumbling across one of those videos and just sitting there like, wait… this is real?

A Japanese friend of mine visited an American middle school as part of a science class. He was invited to eat lunch with the students or go out with the staff. He chose (after not having ever been in an American school cafeteria) to sit with the students he had talked to as a matter of respect.

He sent me a picture of what he was served -- cold pizza slab with a cup of fruit. His comment was simply "How are you to learn when your soul hungers? Is this really how American schools prepare the minds of the youngest?" I responded with "Oh you're lucky, you got the fancy meal."

That a cheese slice between two slices of bread with some mayo would be served to a child as their only food of the day was spiritually disgusting to him in a way he did not have words for.

Re: I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt

#760

Post by gopher_space »

thr0waway39290 wrote: post #739
giantg2 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This is a HUGE, dangerous leap." If you're telling me they are "starving" then it isn't.

It's disappointing that there is such an automatic response to cover up for the parents who starve their children that people automatically dismissed your argument. I have a problem with government stepping in to remove children from their parents but parents should definitely be blamed for their own child starving. I think all empathy should go to the child who is starving and significantly less to the parent who ca…

It's a reductive one-liner from someone obviously unfamiliar with and disinterested in the problem space, and it's the kind of statement people familiar with and interested in the problem space hear so frequently that it sounds intentionally ignorant.

When you're reasoning outside of your own domain it's easy to get stuck in a "yeah, but why male models?" loop unless you listen to feedback.

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