I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt • Hacker News Board

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

#871

Post by roughly » Wed, May 07, 2025, 6:19 PM UTC

casey2 wrote: post #803

Spivak wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The weird thing about the LLM era is it’s impossible to tell if an actual human decided to string these words together or if someone’s just playing around with an Ebenezer Scrooge persona.

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

#872

Post by Suppafly » Wed, May 07, 2025, 6:20 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #782

Suppafly wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It costs about $6 around here, so let's say without toy it's $5. Sure but half of that is profit, so it's a silly thing to even mention. If you are using bad faith exams intentionally, it's a good sign that your comment is being made in bad faith. >$77 billion a year. I'm not sure you how go to 77 billion from 71 million kids, but whatever, if that's what it costs we should do it.

71,000,000 * 3 * 365 = 7.775×10¹⁰ 77,745,000,000 A dollar a meal, three times a day, three sixty five days a year. Pretty simple.

>Pretty simple.

Which is why it's silly I suppose.

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

#873

Post by alphan0n » Wed, May 07, 2025, 6:58 PM UTC

madeofpalk wrote: post #413

verisimi wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes. That's an acceptable position to hold. It's unacceptable and inhumane to think that children should starve. The devil doesn't need an advocate here.

You would be hard pressed to find many examples of actual starvation in the US due to a lack of food availability.

IIRC there are around 20-30 cases, yearly, mostly the product of abuse by a caretaker/guardian.

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

#874

Post by talldatethrow » Wed, May 07, 2025, 7:03 PM UTC

DrillShopper wrote: post #862

talldatethrow wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> These are people that make $250k-$600k probably. But that's not "wealthy" in the SF bay area. This is absolutely batshit to someone living in the midwest. I could save enough to retire in 5-7 years if I were making that much.

It's all relative. Someone making $250k with a family in the SF Bay Area could be basically living paycheck to paycheck if they just try to appear casually financially well-off. Nice house, nice car, electricity is 4x more than Idaho for example so add bills, eat out a few times, and send one child to a $4k a month 1st grade and you're living paycheck to paycheck.

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

#875

Post by framapotari » Wed, May 07, 2025, 7:14 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #691

framapotari wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the more reason for using schools to feed children who may be abused and starved at home.

Yes, but is that all you do? One meal a day does not solve the problems of an abused child.

Of course that is not all, how on earth did you get that impression?

Doing something to address a problem doesn't imply that nothing else will be done and that this one thing is expected to solve the problem entirely. I didn't think this needed explaining.

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

#876

Post by asdf6969 » Wed, May 07, 2025, 7:20 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #851

asdf6969 wrote: post #833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 meals averaging 600 calories plus a snack is completely reasonable. A sandwich is a meal. I don’t know what kind of sandwiches you’re eating in Austria but I don’t think it’s the same as me.

well apparently our sandwiches are smaller. i found this table: https://kalorientabelle.tv/kalorien-kcal-sandwich.html the sandwiches there barely reach 300

very interesting. 2 slices of bread is at least 200 calories here

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

#877

Post by gamblor956 » Wed, May 07, 2025, 7:42 PM UTC

talldatethrow wrote: post #810

gamblor956 wrote: post #779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's very believable; the kind of people who unnecessarily send their kids to an expensive private school when some of the best public schools in the country are nearby are the kind of people who would generally socialize together.

And $250k is wealthy. That's literally top 1.5 percentile in the U.S. They don't have to blow half of their income sending their kids to an expensive school. They choose to do so and that is the hallmark of wealth.

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

#878

Post by gamblor956 » Wed, May 07, 2025, 7:45 PM UTC

talldatethrow wrote: post #874

DrillShopper wrote: post #862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These are people that make $250k-$600k probably. But that's not "wealthy" in the SF bay area. This is absolutely batshit to someone living in the midwest. I could save enough to retire in 5-7 years if I were making that much.

It's all relative. Someone making $250k with a family in the SF Bay Area could be basically living paycheck to paycheck if they just try to appear casually financially well-off. Nice house, nice car, electricity is 4x more than Idaho for example so add bills, eat out a few times, and send one child to a $4k a month 1st grade and you're living paycheck to paycheck.

No, that's just bad financial management. Spending $48000 to send your kid to a private school is a choice that parents can make when they're wealthy enough to do so.

"Living paycheck to paycheck" means that you just barely make enough to pay for food and rent, and don't have any spare money to cover unplanned costs like medical care. Spending a ton of money on vacation and private school is by definition not living paycheck to paycheck.

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

#879

Post by talldatethrow » Wed, May 07, 2025, 7:53 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #878

talldatethrow wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all relative. Someone making $250k with a family in the SF Bay Area could be basically living paycheck to paycheck if they just try to appear casually financially well-off. Nice house, nice car, electricity is 4x more than Idaho for example so add bills, eat out a few times, and send one child to a $4k a month 1st grade and you're living paycheck to paycheck.

No, that's just bad financial management. Spending $48000 to send your kid to a private school is a choice that parents can make when they're wealthy enough to do so. "Living paycheck to paycheck" means that you just barely make enough to pay for food and rent, and don't have any spare money to cover unplanned costs like medical care. Spending a ton of money on vacation and private school is by definition not living…

No it doesn't. Living paycheck to paycheck means you don't have any left over each paycheck, and the worse version of it is that you don't even have emergency savings left over in case unforseen costs come up.

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

#880

Post by talldatethrow » Wed, May 07, 2025, 7:56 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #877

talldatethrow wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's very believable; the kind of people who unnecessarily send their kids to an expensive private school when some of the best public schools in the country are nearby are the kind of people who would generally socialize together. And $250k is wealthy. That's literally top 1.5 percentile in the U.S. They don't have to blow half of their income sending their kids to an expensive school. They choose to do so and tha…

It doesn't matter what percentile in the US it is, when a 2 bedroom apartment is $3k+ and the average small house is $6k to rent.

Also. If you haven't been to a public school in California recently you really don't know what has changed. I went to public school all my life and then ended up in Berkeley. I'm 40. It was borderline negligent for my parents to send me there in my opinion as a kid knowing what I know now. But we were pretty hard up for money.

But if you told me, should someone lease two luxury cars or send their kid to private school.... You'd have to be nuts to think you'd gain more from the cars than the school.