[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.)

[tbrownaw]

> That's why, for example, I know I'm probably coming off pretty harsh with this and am deliberately doing so anyway

You're not coming off as "harsh" at all. You're hiding behind unfounded assertions about me personally in order to avoid providing anything concrete to back up your rather sweeping claims.

Relying on ad-hominem attacks isn't harsh, it's what you do when you don't have anything better to support your position.

[throwanem]

I don't know what to tell you. This isn't science we're doing; it's a conversation between strangers. Each of us only has what they see to go on.

It isn't going to help to say that nothing I've said is in any way critical of you as a person, but it's true. I'm not saying you're a bad person because you don't understand; I'm saying there are some things you need to have lived through or at least very near to understand what makes them matter, and the way you talk about them is the way I typically see people talk who have not done that. That's all.

I still don't understand what I said in the first place that you took so amiss. You came right in swinging from the start [1], and while I'm sure there was a reason, I don't think it has helped for me not to know what that was. Certainly being made to start from the back foot has not.

If it was about how I'd misread the other fellow, that's entirely fair; if so, that I have since apologized without reservation [2] might help get our own conversation closer to an even keel. Outside of that, though, as I said before, I can't imagine what it might have been.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41689716

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41692004

[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.