[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