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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

#801

Post by mettamage »

bgnn wrote: post #624
mettamage wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the HN guidelines. I didn't downvote you, as I am giving you the benefit of the doubt, but it reads as a sarcastic snarky comment [1]. It's bread, butter and cheese. Not dry bread and cheese. I didn't eat that as a kid though, I hated cheese when I was young. The quality of the bread varies, depending on the views of the household. The way I grew up everyone favored white bread but me. I always ate brown bread.…

Hey, I'm Dutch and that was indeed a snarky comment coming from my own experience. Sorry that it's a big deal for you, or others it seems. That wasn't the intention.

Ah, fair enough. I see where you're coming from :)

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

#802

Post by gosub100 »

lurking_swe wrote: post #745
gosub100 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the cultural emphasis placed on individualism. That's just a roundabout way to spell diversity, isn't it?

Individualism is a concept that emphasizes prioritizing oneself above all else, including family, friends, and your local community. What does that have to do with race or country of birth, or your gender?

[flagged]

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

#803

Post by casey2 »

Spivak wrote: post #517
lmz wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think she'll learn the answer after she gets a job and needs to pay for food.

Yes, as an adult she will learn that it's extra stupid because as a child she had no means or autonomy to work for and pay for her own food. I mean I've heard tell that children yearn for the mines but when it's the responsibility of adults to provide for the material needs of children any adult who actively participates in a system which seeks to deny a child those needs is at the top of my shitlist. There is no uni…

The government abuses children in that they prevent them from working under the irreligious notion that working is exploitative, creating ten problems from one. Thus they are forced to sit in daycare for years as their spirit is forever tainted by the great "mercy" of their parents and government.

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

#804

Post by casey2 »

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…

Or you could just have gotten a job? I think your anger is misdirected here. Be mad at the politician and their supporters who decided that you shouldn't be allowed to work. Despite what they may believe, kids need to eat too and as we all can plain well see living on either the government or parent teat for too long turns them into layabouts.

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

#805

Post by Lanzaa »

chasd00 wrote: post #672
throwaway2037 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think my kids have ever eaten a school lunch. I am confused why it was important to include this sentence in your post. Overall: Excellent. This sentence: Not required. Is this a flex?

funny thing, i actually thought about that sentence a lot. I added it in after writing the rest of the post because i felt bad implying I subject my kids to school food. I wasn't intending that as a "flex" but just that the food is really bad. On the other hand, i understand not all families have that option so maybe it is a flex in an unintended way.

You may not have intended it as a "flex", but you are teaching your children to be snooty. If they have "never" eaten a school lunch, they have judged the lunches based on appearance rather than substance/flavor. I wonder how you have judged the school lunches to be lesser than MREs, perhaps you tried the lunches before your children.

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

#806

Post by thr0waway39290 »

gopher_space wrote: post #760
thr0waway39290 wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's very judgemental, assuming he's unfamiliar and disinterested.

A lot of people have their own detailed reasons for why things are happening that don't make sense when you zoom out and ask basic questions. E.g the children are already starving, all the nuance you are describing is based on the assumption that the children aren't already starving.

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

#807

Post by permo-w »

osrec wrote: post #688
permo-w wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're proving my point. people think these things because, as you say, they're instilled in the American national mentality. it makes sense to think that's wrong, it makes sense to think people should think for themselves and try to engage their empathy circuits for people not in their immediate family, but it's taking it a million steps too far to say they're subhuman or unevolved, and it's not helping anything any…

A less evolved sense of humility (as I originally put it) does not equate to stupid. They are far from stupid - they are ruthless consumers of every scrap of advantage they can get, including the best education, food, clothes to name but a few things. They believe they deserve that advantage. In fact, they see the person who can't afford lunch as stupid - after all, an intelligent person should at least be able to ge…

I feel like you're not actually replying to the things I said. I added that they may be stupid as an afterthought given that I value challenging societal norms highly as a signal of intelligence. the main points were elsewhere

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

#808

Post by x-complexity »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #581
x-complexity wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 the first time I felt like a big part of my childhood had been sold to the lowest bidder. ....I share the sentiment, but I also see the chasm between the requirements to get to what's desired, & what's actually given to meet those r…

This "cultural toll" you talk of, is just another form of conformist behaviour that all societies have in different forms. Some countries have class/caste strata, others have a laissez-faire attitude to expectations in general, others have a rigid societal code, others appear to be less so but the moment you go near guns, abortion or taxation the societal codes and hierarchy spring into action and snap shut around th…

As noted by an earlier reply (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43905660), I agree with the first 3 paragraphs. The last paragraph, however, is a launch in accusations, and will be treated as such.

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> What's interesting to me is that you seem to think that the status quo in the US is rightly defensible.

You're already reading into something that doesn't exist.

The underlying cultural axioms of the US are, in a reductive sense, focused more towards individual pursuits, with the accompanying effects that came from such a cultural choice being made self-evident. No defense was made towards those axioms, only that changing them requires the same toll that Japan paid to also be done by the US.

> Looking in from afar with limited skin in the game I'd argue it looks really, really dumb.

I've lived my entire life within a "3rd world" (S.E.A). To that end, I will say that I have isolated pockets of envy for what's allowed within the US. Other parts... I could do without, but I recognize that they're part of the "US' whole deal" bag, and adopting it requires taking on the whole bag, without exceptions.

The cultural choices made are a mixed bag, and should be treated as such. Prescriptivist blanket statements like that serve no purpose other than tribal in-group signalling that can be done without.

> This "individualism" (but where the courts get to tell people who they are and what they can believe when it comes to certain issues that have religious or historical undertones), seems to be leading to a fractured partisan nation where everyone hates anyone who even slightly disagrees with them.

This is not something that's wholly exclusive to individualism.

The same kinds of partisan rhetoric can similarly be achieved with "anti-individualism" cultures, simply because humans came from a tribal background: When more than one non-immediately-societally-lethal path exists for people to choose from, partisan support for a given path X will happen as a side effect of advocacy for X.

The partisan rhetoric that comes when A clashes with B (and/or C, D, E...) is the conclusion of (1) only being able to choose one choice, & (2) that anything that is not A being chosen feeling like a loss.

"Individualism bad because partisanship" does not mean that its alternatives avert this phenomenon.

> Not a great way to bring kids up... perhaps y'all could try something else for a while, hmm?

This is mud slinging, given the most charitable interpretation possible.

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

#809

Post by relaxing »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #273
relaxing wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individually managed efforts doesn’t scale. If you were cynical you might think that is precisely why some favor that solution.

> If you were cynical you might think that is precisely why some favor that solution. On the contrary. Many people favor individually managed efforts because they disagree with your premise, and believe that such efforts scale better than centrally managed ones.

That doesn’t match any definition of scale.

They favor individual efforts because they don’t want certain groups being helped.

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

#810

Post by talldatethrow »

gamblor956 wrote: post #779
BobaFloutist wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California actually has a pretty solid school tax-redistribition system that more or less solves this problem (of course districts still can and do fundraise for direct donations to the PTA/music fund and bond measures to upgrade facilities, but it's still vastly more fair). In a completely unrelated phenomenon, private schools are incredibly popular among Californians of means.

Most wealthy people in CA don't send their kid to private school. That's a rarity even among the wealthy. There are plenty of good public schools in CA. There are only a handful of good private ones.

I am dating someone that has a child in private school. First grade costs $4k+ a month, maybe even 6k I forget. Nothing in the parking lot or talking even screams wealthy. Every person I've met in the social circle, also send their kids to private school in the SF bay area. I haven't even met another adult that sends their kids to public school. These are people that make $250k-$600k probably. But that's not "wealthy" in the SF bay area.
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