[hesdeadjim]

I hope you are aware of your immense luck in life if you think a kid in a situation like this has agency of any kind, let alone access to resources to help them “escape poverty” as a minor.

You know why no-questions asked, free lunch programs for everyone are so hugely important for kids suffering from food scarcity? Often it’s because their shitty parents won’t even sign forms to get them free lunch.

Please educate yourself in what actual suffering looks like in this world.

[nuancebydefault]

Biweekly I work freely at an initiative in our city to help deliver food to the needy. I believe i know what poverty looks like. I'm not sure what this has to do with my question, probably it was ill formed, for which i apologize.

[throwanem]

From how you all use the language, I suspect you and your critical interlocutors are speaking across the Atlantic to one another. Poverty in Europe looks a lot different from poverty in the US. It is not wise to assume much at all about one from the other.

You also failed in reading the article to notice that the author plainly did derive considerable psychological support from improving his skill. This was not explicitly stated but was trivially implicit, which I think not only for me may add to the sense you more pattern-matched on the article than read it.

For myself, I'm much more unfavorably impressed with your failure to notice the kid plainly was solving his own problems with computers and in life, and deriving from that success a stronger sense of personal agency which helped him approach the larger tasks that faced him.

It seems to me only a view of poverty which is paternalistic unto contempt could fail to attend this process which was explicitly described in the article, but then I am an American, and would not wish to risk commenting on a culture I don't understand well enough to form opinions about.

[nuancebydefault]

Like i wrote, the question was probably ill formed, but it is a question, not an opinion nonetheless.

I am a bit touched that it seemed like i did not read or understand the article, in fact i read the article in its entirety, as one of the first to comment, even to my surprise for such a compelling story. I understood he was getting support and feeling strengthened by his learning on the internet. I feel my questions seem to be taken as rhetorical. I feel it is still unanswered, even no hints towards how or why, only that 'i should not ask such questions'. I guess American culture is very different from European (can it even be seen as having a culture as a whole, there is so much diversity)... and hence my question not being appreciated?

[throwanem]

Your reading comprehension is being interrogated because, in speaking of the article as though it did not say several of the things it says, you make such questions seem necessary.

You are being told that the question you asked is "not even wrong": it is without meaning and so not meaningfully answerable, because it could only be asked at all from such a fundamental ignorance of the American situation around poverty that to attempt to even explain the misapprehension would require more the scope of an undergraduate course than an HN comment.

I would not usually be so blunt, but in this case meeting an apparent need for directness seems worth the risk of a rude impression. If you need it put still more plainly, though, I'm afraid I cannot help you.

[tbrownaw]

> in speaking of the article as though it did not say several of the things it says, you make such questions seem necessary.

What specifically does it say that is being ignored? That the author happened to find things he hadn't gone looking for directly?

> fundamental ignorance of the American situation around poverty

Are you claiming that terrible parents are uniquely American, in a way that is incapable of being explained to outsiders?

[throwanem]

The idea that this man's past situation can reduce to "terrible parents" even as passing reference, is a better example than I could ever invent of why this conversation will end fruitlessly for you.

It isn't that I don't see the obvious and honest effort you're putting into trying to have it. I respect that. The problem still is, though, that you don't see the entire world of social support structures that have been so ever-present for you throughout your life that you're unable in any real way to imagine what a life in their total absence even looks like. And if that sounds like a description of a chicken/egg problem, that's because it is one.

For you maybe this is the first time trying to talk across that divide. For someone like me, it's usually anything but. It's hard to fairly blame us for getting to learn some idea of how that usually goes.

(That's why, for example, I know I'm probably coming off pretty harsh with this and am deliberately doing so anyway; if I tried to go easier, we'd just take longer to still end up in the same place.)

[nuancebydefault]

Thanks

[tbrownaw]

> You also failed in reading the article to notice that the author plainly did derive considerable psychological support from improving his skill. This was not explicitly stated but was trivially implicit

There's a difference between happening to find psychological support in something, vs asking for it directly. I assumed the comment you're trashing was asking about why they didn't do the second and only the first.

> For myself, I'm much more unfavorably impressed with your failure to notice the kid plainly was solving his own problems with computers and in life, and deriving from that success a stronger sense of personal agency which helped him approach the larger tasks that faced him.

So what you're saying is that it's a great personal failing to wonder why he relied on this happenstance rather than looking for those things directly.

> It seems to me only a view of poverty which is paternalistic unto contempt could fail to attend this process which was explicitly described in the article, but then I am an American, and would not wish to risk commenting on a culture I don't understand well enough to form opinions about.

You are showing utter contempt for someone who understood a described situation differently due to what you assert must me incurable ignorance borne of living in a society not your own. This seems rather different from refusing to comment on other cultures that you claim to not understand.

[nuancebydefault]

In fact this is the gist of what i wanted to reply, but i feel we were cross-talking anyways...

[throwanem]

You demonstrate very well the same incharity with which you intend to argue I've read and spoken.

[dennis_jeeves2]

>I believe i know what poverty looks like.

Judging by your parent comment, you don't.

[hesdeadjim]

I live in a wealthy area in the US, we have many food banks and social support services, and still there are huge numbers of kids suffering from food scarcity. It always comes back to the parents. Even delivering food requires said parents to give a shit, which they don’t —- whether out of pride or sociopathic disdain.

My state is one a handful that provides free lunches and morning snacks to all kids, regardless of parent incomes. It’s essential for these children.

You are still conflating your experience volunteering with full knowledge of the problem.

[nuancebydefault]

I don't have full knowledge of the problem. Hence the questions. It's a pitty i only get answers in the sense of "you don't know what you are talking/questioning about".

[Eumenes]

Your entire comment is strange and snarky but this stuck out:

> You know why no-questions asked, free lunch programs for everyone are so hugely important for kids suffering from food scarcity? Often it’s because their shitty parents won’t even sign forms to get them free lunch.

So its no questions asked but "shitty parents" still have to sign forms? Most states with reduced/free lunch programs have income thresholds. Regardless, if you let your kid eat that crap, you're a "shitty parent", because its literally choked full of sodium and fake ingredients. If I lived in one of those states, I'd be asking for my lunch voucher in cash to go towards real food.

[BryantD]

Indeed. People tend to reflexively assume that income thresholds are a good idea because it prevents people who don't need the program from benefitting, but you've got to think about the cost to the kids whose parents won't do that particular piece of paperwork. Just give kids food if they say they need it. You'll also save money on bureaucracy.

This is a separate question from the quality of the food. I will note that if you give out cash instead of vouchers you are giving the kid something that others can and will take away from them.

[Yawrehto]

I think what they meant was that if there are eligibility requirements and such, paperwork is required and some parents won't do it. So no questions asked solves that problem. That's how I parsed it, at least.