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by laughinghan 3652 days ago
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.
2 comments
douche 3652 days ago
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...

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yummyfajitas 3652 days ago
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?

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laughinghan 3652 days ago
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?

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Tycho 3652 days ago
big difference between a fable and an anecdote
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laughinghan 3651 days ago
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.

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