[yummyfajitas]

The comic explicitly claims:

Panel 2: Paulas house is full of people and not much else. It's damp and noisy and she keeps getting sick.

My interpretation of this is that Paula's house is overcrowded and has severe physical problems that make her sick. How do you interpret it?

Panel 3: That's why they're working two jobs.

My interpretation of this is that Paula's parents are working two jobs, and as a result cannot help her with homework. In contrast, Richard's parents in the left side are doing exactly that. How did you interpret it?

[laughinghan]

Like I said in grandparent, I interpret it as saying that poor children have reduced access to resources and opportunities. Which is testable and widely accepted as true.

The comic also explicitly claims that poor Americans are all named Paula, have been recommended Eazee Finance, and work as cater-waiters. Why didn't you take those literally? I'm no scientist, but I'm pretty sure at least one of those is also false. I think I met a poor person once who said she'd never heard of Eazee Finance. She might've misheard me, what with her poor hearing because the house she grew up in was so damp and noisy. Her name was Paula though, so anecdotally that checks out.

[douche]

With the name Paula, all I can think is that she became a really bad computer programmer[1][2], and was stuck waiting tables after the dot-com crash.

It's weird how name associations stick in your head.

[1]http://thedailywtf.com/articles/The_Brillant_Paula_Bean

[2]http://thedailywtf.com/articles/The_Brillant_Paula_Strikes_B...

[yummyfajitas]

So we are now agreed that none of the factual matters described in the comic are remotely representative of poor Americans? And actually all these extreme examples are just somehow representative of some nebulous and vague "reduced access"?

Incidentally, "reduced access" is not a testable prediction - how would I test it? What does it even refer to?

[laughinghan]

You may be surprised to learn that none of the factual matters in the story of the hare and tortoise are remotely representative of real hares and tortoises. Not only have there been no recorded instances of hares or tortoises using human speech, scientists are fairly sure that they are physiologically incapable of human phonology.

I don't understand what you're saying. There is a consensus that poor Americans are at a disadvantage when it comes to school, business, and health. Are you challenging that that's the consensus, or do you acknowledge that that's the consensus but you're challenging whether it's true?

[Tycho]

big difference between a fable and an anecdote

[laughinghan]

It has to happen in real life to be an anecdote. Did the comic give the impression of being biographical accounts of two people who coincidentally end up interacting at an event where one of them is being congratulated?

The comic was subtitled "A Short Story"; Wikipedia defines a "short story" as "a piece of prose fiction...". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_story

It was clearly a fable.