[hoophoop]

> I think being really broke greatly hinders your ability to think rationally.

No: being really broke can cause a lot of anxiety that can lead to irrational behavior.

But often a person has to choose between homelessness and crime and picks the latter as a rational choice, given the alternative.

So please don't assume poor = "crazy" = criminal, it's a bit unkind.

[sjwright]

When did tombert assume that poor = "crazy" = criminal? It's a bit unkind to take general thoughts about psychological pathways and unfairly reify them with the use of equality symbols.

[hoophoop]

> When did tombert assume that poor = "crazy" = criminal?

It's implied here:

"I think being really broke greatly hinders your ability to think rationally."

...by putting that sentence out alone without clarifying the context.

> psychological pathways

> unfairly reify

Are you feeling ok?

[tombert]

I'm sorry it wasn't clear but this seems like a needlessly pedantic distinction.

I never said "poor = 'crazy' = criminal". I don't think poor people are inherently crazy, though I suppose that being mentally ill could conceivably hinder your ability to make a decent income, if we're being pedantic. I feel like you're assuming I said something that I didn't; I really don't think I was being "unkind". In fact, I was trying to have a pretty sympathetic perspective on this. If that was not clear then that's a failing on my end and I apologize.

Yes, you could make an argument is the "more rational" decision is to commit a crime, I read Les Miserables, but keep in mind that my comment was in direct response to someone asking why unemployment led to violent crime, and I specifically did not exclude myself from any category.

[sjwright]

Implied? No, not even with the most uncharitable interpretation did tombert even imply that being poor makes you "crazy" or that being crazy makes you a criminal. A hindered ability to think rationally might only make one more impulsive or less able to consider long term consequences.

You are literally accusing the writer of implying things which rely upon a context of your own making, not theirs.

[BariumBlue]

This is interesting - I read that statement exactly like the person who made the post that you just responded to, and thought it to be the clearly obvious interpretation.

I would consider someone that has their rationality stripped (or "greatly hindered") to be irrational. I think "irrational" is a bit more passive than "crazy", but I would personally read those as mostly synonymous.

I wonder why we interpret the same sentence so differently - we may be reading between the lines in very different ways - like the "blue&black / gold&white" dress.

[tombert]

Again, I apologize if it's not more clear, but you do understand that if I implied that they were crazy, that would also imply that I called myself crazy, right?

That's what the following paragraph is about, trying to explain that this could happen to anyone.

[BariumBlue]

Yes? I did understand that - you were saying that being broke can lead one to do and think things that they'd normally consider crazy or irrational.

Are you thinking that I understood your statement to mean that being broke would permanently turn you into a loony? Maybe I generally consider "crazy" to be a temporary state or state of mind that anyone can get into or out of, and you generally consider "crazy" to be a permanent fixture of personality, dividing society into hard lines of people that are either "crazy" or "not-crazy"?